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Many theme parks, zoos, aquariums, and other attractions are receiving deserved attention for their environ mentally conscious efforts. But some of these attractions are taking their endeavors a step farther and extending the impact of their green efforts outside their gates; they’re organizing volunteers and contributing significant time, resources, and expertise to many important and worthwhile projects.
FUNWORLD explores the efforts of six attractions and the positive examples they’ve set through their hard work, commitment, and leadership.
Zoo Hannover Saves More Than Just One Species
Germany’s Zoo Hannover is involved in a fascinating conservation program that’s not only reintroducing a near-extinct species back into the wild, but in doing so is actually propagating life-giving flora in regions of the Sahara Desert.
The addax is a creamy-white antelope with magnificent spiral horns, and its natural habitat is the Sahara. It is ideally adapted to this environment, able to endure the intense heat and capable of surviving for months with little water. But environmental pressures and hunting have pushed the addax to the brink of extinction, with only about 500 remaining in the wild.
 Zoo Hannover spent the past several years reintroducing the addax into areas of Tunisia and Morocco, and now 100 addax bred in European and American zoos live in Saharan national parks. But beyond the survival of the species itself, the reintroduction of the addax brings another remarkable and crucial element to the survival of all life in the desert region: As the addax nibble on desert grasses the grasses grow more, and as the animals consume the grass seedlings, they spread them all around the region through their droppings, proliferating the life cycle of the grasses.
“The addax are crucially important to the desert and its people,” says Dr. Simone Hagenmeyer, the zoo’s press officer. “Without these antelopes, the Sahara degenerates and life there [could be] impossible.”
To inform its guests and supporters about the zoo’s contributions to the survival of this species and its vital life-giving role in its environment, Zoo Hannover and the Hannover Region Zoo Foundation opened the Sahara Conservation Visitors Center inside the zoo in May 2009. Its exhibits explain the project, and the zoo hopes that it encourages public interest and support.
“We aim to stimulate public interest in these precious animals,” says the zoo’s director, Klaus-Michael Machens. “Everyone will feel the allure of the new Saharan landscape, and visitors’ attention will naturally be drawn to the addax and their enclosure mates, the Somali wild ass, who are equally endangered.”
Adventure Aquarium Focuses on Camden’s Future
 The Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey, created its “Fins for the Future” program to specifically promote environmentally friendly and socially responsible business practices, and to identify ways that its staff and guests can help out.
The program has initiated or supported several green projects over the past five years. In June 2010, Camden’s mayor launched a citywide “Camden Clean Campaign” aimed at beautifying the city. “Fins for the Future” supported the campaign by assembling numerous volunteers to work together with city residents and employees to, among other things, pick up litter, clean parks, and plant shrubs and greenery. As a result, 185 Adventure Aquarium volunteer hours were donated in 2010 to “greening up” more than 140 lots, parks, and streets throughout Camden.
Since 2005, the aquarium has participated in New Jersey’s Clean Ocean Action Beach Sweeps. The aquarium teamed with nonprofit Clean Ocean Action and “adopted” a beach in Ventnor, New Jersey. Twice a year, the aquarium spearheads “beach sweeps” to clean up trash. Staff and other volunteers have donated more than 500 hours to the beach sweeps.
In cooperation with Citco and Camden school students, the aquarium also supports Delaware River cleanups. Volunteers clean the shores of Petty Island, a 392-acre island located on the Delaware River in Camden, and Millennium Park, also on the Delaware River. Part of this effort involves Adventure Aquarium divers, who have donated 75 hours to keeping the local rivers and streams clean.
In response to the decline of the horseshoe crab population over the past 20 years, aquarium volunteers have participated in “crab counts” every May and June on 18 beaches in Delaware and New Jersey. The data collected supports ongoing horseshoe crab conservation efforts.
To publicize these efforts and inspire support, Adventure Aquarium posts information throughout its building and website, distributes fliers, and initiates “calls to action” on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
“We do realize the importance of not only identifying socially responsible business practices, but communicating those efforts to the public, as well,” says Executive Director Greg Charbeneau, “so that guests can feel good about the businesses they choose to support.”
Legoland and Sea Life Reach Out, Recycle
As attractions with a strong focus on children, Legoland California in Carlsbad, and its on-site marine center, the Sea Life Aquarium, see their environmental efforts as especially important because their facilities and employees can serve as role models for kids.
On Sept. 25, 2010, volunteers from the sister attractions removed plastic bags, bottle caps, cigarette butts, and even an old lobster trap from the Carlsbad State Beach during the 26th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day. The cleanup removed more than 146 pounds of trash—47 pounds of which was recyclable—from the shores of the beach, trash that could have wound up in the ocean.
In 2009, in an effort to divert “e-waste” from local landfills and waterways, the aquarium joined with Recycle San Diego and I Love a Clean San Diego to host a free electronic waste collection event. Some of the items turned in included computers, televisions, DVD players, printers, radios, batteries, telephones, and electronic games.
“Every person that brought e-waste to recycle received one free ticket to Sea Life Aquarium, and the driver was entered into a drawing for fun prizes,” says Julie Estrada, spokesperson for the attractions. “Only 10 percent of the more than 6,000 computers thrown away each day in California are recycled. That is thousands of tons of electronics filling our landfills, not to mention old televisions, cell phones, and other household electronics.”
To get the word out about green efforts, Estrada says the park sends out media advisories ahead of time and alerts its annual pass holders by e-mail. On the day of the events, the park’s videographer and photographer take photos and video and distribute them to TV stations.
Crealy Continues PlayPump Program
Since 2006, Crealy Adventure Parks in Exeter, Devon, England, has been supporting the installation of Roundabout PlayPumps in regions of sub-Saharan Africa.
 The PlayPumps are an ingenious idea that takes advantage of kids’ love for roundabouts. As children play on these simple amusements, water is pumped from a deep-underground borehole into an overhead storage tank, which provides clean water for 2,500 people. Crealy is coordinating its efforts with PlayPumps International of South Africa, which has installed some 1,700 PlayPumps across Africa.
To date, Crealy has raised enough money through guest donations as staff fundraisers to pay for three additional Roundabout PlayPumps to be installed. To raise awareness of the project, the park has appointed a staff member to act as a PlayPump “ambassador” to do things like give educational talks to school groups. Crealy has also installed mock-up PlayPumps in its parks so guests can see how they work.
“One of Crealy’s main aims is to generate awareness of the PlayPumps to our guests,” says Nicola Ash, public relations officer for Crealy. “This is done by a dedicated Roundabout PlayPumps page on our website and by guests having the opportunity to have hands-on experience with the Play- Pumps at our parks. The PlayPumps at the parks are supported by signage and a rolling video explaining the role of the charity and the pumps.”
As to whether the PlayPumps are an ecological conservation effort, Crealy founder Angela Wright once commented that if the pumps were providing water solely for the benefit of animals or plant life, there’s no question they would be regarded as such, and she noted that the fact they’re providing life for the “human” mammal makes them no less meritorious.
Gulf World Helped Animals Affected by Oil Spill
During the big oil well leak in the Gulf of Mexico last summer, a park that was enduring significant drops in attendance due to all of the negative publicity about the event still took the initiative in helping one part of the ecosystem impacted by the spill. Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City Beach, Florida, serves as the regional stranding rehab center for turtles and dolphins. During the spill, Florida Fish and Wildlife, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and volunteers rescued turtles covered in oil and turned them over to Gulf World, whose staff then went to work.
 “Some nights we’ve had 30 turtles that would need attention,” says Ron Hardy, co-owner of the park. “We had to clean each one three days in a row, then give them two or three weeks to eat on their own. They had to go through an evaluation process and pass a blood test, which made them eligible for long-term care. We sent them to SeaWorld [Orlando] or a couple of places on the East Coast, and they’d keep them for another two weeks. Then we’d release them on the northeast side of the Gulf of Mexico.”
Hardy says the park invested thousands of man-hours in saving hundreds of turtles, and adds, “It was a good program because those animals would have lingered, it would have finally gotten in their digestive systems, and more than likely it would have killed them.”
This is not the first time Gulf World has come to the aid of struggling turtles. Last winter, when Florida experienced abnormally cold temperatures, the park helped some 1,400 cold-stunned turtles. “We had them all in pools here to warm them up,” says Hardy. “It was a good success story. We do a lot of things like that here at Gulf World.”
Calgary Zoo Makes a Difference— for Hippos and Humans
 Back in the late 1990s, three local chiefs of Wechiau, a district capital in Ghana, West Africa, were intent on creating a hippopotamus sanctuary along a 25-mile stretch of the Volga River, but they lacked the resources to make it happen. In stepped the Calgary Zoo in Alberta, Canada, providing consultation, expertise, and funding to make the sanctuary a reality in 1999.
More than a decade later, the hippos are flourishing and 17 villages and 10,000 people have benefitted from the zoo’s support. “More than 500 solar lights have been installed in the villages and homes of the Wechiau people, two schools have been built, water wells have been dug, and both ecotourism and other cottage industries have emerged,” says Laurie Herron, the zoo’s communications manager.
The zoo keeps its guests and supporters informed about the sanctuary, and as a result received support from corporations, individuals, and school groups. The project is so successful it won the United Nations Equator Prize and is now being used as a model for other community-based initiatives.
Kevin Strange, head of the zoo’s Conservation Outreach department, tells FUNWORLD the sanctuary project was a “rigorously peer-reviewed article in the journal Environmental Conservation, which demonstrates that this community conservation project has indeed been successful and represents a model which could be deployed in other locations. This is huge.”
Strange has been working for a year on a remarkable plan to fund a shea butter processing center in the sanctuary to create a long-term financial support engine for its operations, and that center is now under construction. Says Strange, “If it works according to plan, the zoo can ‘retire’ from the sanctuary, knowing its future is secure.”
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Contact News Editor Keith Miller at kmiller@IAAPA.org.
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