The results are in! After tallying up the numbers we are blown away to share that “A Guide to the Birdsong” is able to donate another $32,000 USD to help endangered birds in South America, Central America and Western Africa. This takes the total raised by the project to over 80,000 USD thus far.

This is all thanks to YOU! To everyone that backed the Kickstarter, bought the vinyl, listened to the album and proudly wore the t-shirt. 

Missed out on a vinyl? We still have some available here. Love to get your hands on a t-shirt or a poster? We just updated the Shika Shika shop! Or you’d just like to donate to the project? All support, in whatever amount, is hugely appreciated and we are inspired to keep donating as the earlier albums continue to raise money! Donations can be made here.

So, you might be wondering where the money will go? Our latest album “A Guide to the Birdsong of Western Africa” raised $18,000 USD to date and that will be shared between three inspiring, unique and impactful projects helping save endangered birds and their habitats in the region. Discover more about our beneficiaries below.

The Nigerian Bird Atlas Project (NiBAP)

The Nigerian Bird Atlas Project (NiBAP) is a citizen science initiative of the A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute (APLORI) aimed at promoting public participation in bird and biodiversity conservation through bird watching and atlasing. NiBAP recruits, trains and organizes nature enthusiasts into bird and nature clubs.  Through this project, over 1,000 young Nigerians have been recruited into bird clubs that the project has helped establish across the country. 

Our donations will help fund field expeditions to survey local bird species, training for additional citizen volunteers, and the purchase of binoculars and other field equipment.

Association Nature Koussabel (ANAK)

The Association Nature Koussabel (ANAK) is a fledgling NGO in Senegal, developed in partnership with the International Crane Foundation and the Endangered Wildlife Trust. The organization focuses on monitoring the rare and beautiful Black crowned crane in the Casamance region of south-west Senegal. The work of ANAK is doubly important: not only is it yielding a better understanding of the threats facing Black Crowned Cranes the area, but the increased understanding the team is gaining will be of great assistance to the ICF and other conservationists as and when circumstances allow them to increase their protection of the Black Crowned Cranes in the rest of their range.

Funds from “A Guide to the Birdsong” will subsidise ongoing crane monitoring to identify threats to the species, as well as training of local communities in climate-smart farming practices that support crane conservation. 

Gulf of Guinea Biodiversity Center (GGBC)

The Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, Africa’s second smallest country, is home to 27 bird species found nowhere else on the planet. Composed of two main volcanic islands in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, the archipelago, possesses large and lush areas of native rainforest rich in endemic species and varied biodiversity like the bird São Tomé Grosbeak. The Gulf of Guinea Biodiversity Center facilitates research, education and conservation of the unique diversity of plants and animals on the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe in close collaboration with Birdlife Africa, the world’s largest nature conservation partnership. 

Thanks to your support our donations will help with the training of additional full-time “guardians of the forest”, who carry out important species monitoring and law enforcement in the natural park of São Tomé, which is home to many bird species that occur nowhere else in the world.

If that wasn’t enough, we are also very proud to share that we are able to continue donating to projects in South America from Volume I and to our partners in Mexico, Central America & the Caribbean from Volume II: 

South America

In South America we will once again support the fantastic work of SalvaMontes, a small conservation NGO working in Colombia’s tropical Andes with a donation of $5,000 USD.

Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean

Meanwhile, in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean we will split $9,000 USD between our three fantastic beneficiaries: Birds Caribbean, Fundación Txori and Asociación Ornitológica de Costa Rica. You can find out more about these organisations and the projects here.

Once again, on behalf of Shika Shika, the artists, the NGOs and most of all the birds, we would like to say a huge thank you for the trust and support in what remains a small, independent, community backed and funded project to use incredible music to save endangered birds. 

Even in the face of the challenges our planet faces, sometimes we just need a bit of good news in dark times.