Greg Edwards had us with the first line of his entry. "Her long legs carried her ever closer," it began. "Her long eyelashes and beautiful eyes brought me into her world. I wondered what her life story had been." It turned out he was talking about a giraffe. And what he was hoping to promote was the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, a charity he set up in 2009.
Fascinated with the creatures from a very early age, when he had a stuffed toy giraffe called Girry, City investment banker Greg, 39, came back from a safari trip to Kenya two years ago determined to find out more about them. What his research uncovered was disturbing: giraffe numbers have declined by at least 30 per cent in the last decade and in some areas of Africa the figure is as high as 70 per cent. So Greg decided to see if there was something he could do to help protect them.
He contacted Dr Julian Fennessy, a big-hitting expert in giraffe conservation. "I said, 'Look, you don't know who I am but I'm passionate about this animal, can you tell me what someone sitting thousands of miles away can really do in any meaningful way to impact the situation?' He basically replied that, at the end of the day, we need to raise funds and to get the word out and tell people what's happening on the ground."
A few months later Greg found himself on gardening leave between two jobs. With time on his hands, he seized the opportunity to get the GCF up and running as a registered charity.
"I think most people thought I was crazy to do it in what was expected to be a quite long-lasting recession but I did it anyway and set sail with very modest expectations," he says. "But the reaction we've had from everyone has been great." As well as publicising the giraffe's plight, the Foundation also raises funds to help protect its habitat and to support research into its ecology and management.
Greg's entry competition entry ended: "I would love to be photographed with her by my side." No sooner said than done. Thanks to our friends at ZSL London Zoo he found himself one sunny morning standing in the giraffe enclosure accompanied by not just one giraffe but three. "It was quite a bizarre feeling," he says. "The thing that surprises me the most about these creatures is that they're so gentle. It's not every day you get to be so close to one."
And the message he'd like to share with business:life readers? "The giraffe has been around for a very long time. We know that some of the cave drawings by prehistoric man in Africa feature them and it would be nice to ensure that future generations also have the privilege of either visiting them in a zoo or seeing them in the wild."
giraffeconservation.org
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