Welcome, Early Birds!

10th February 2021

Dan Kwiatkowski

Thank you for subscribing during the very first month of Tythe! We've made the first payments to our charities, and your contribution was doubled by EQ Foundation 🚀

It's early days and we're still building. Thanks to all your feedback we have plenty of ideas - please keep the suggestions coming and don't be afraid of being too critical! Leave a few words here.

Want to customise the donation split?

At the moment, all donations are split evenly between our 9 selected charities. But some of you have asked for the option of customising how your contributions are shared between the charities, because you're more interested in some than others. It's a great idea and I'm going to prototype what it might look like, so you can let me know what you think. Stay tuned!

10 things you might like this month

Ever wanted to scroll the depths of the ocean? Well a fun guy called Neal has got you covered. Watch out for the fish without a face at 5,000m 😶
Renewables overtook fossil fuels as the EU's main source of electricity in 2020, mainly due to the decline of coal and the rise of solar + wind.
A double sighting of a caucasian leopard in Armenia is giving hope for the endangered subspecies' survival.
In January, ClientEarth won a landmark court case against the European Investment Bank over environmental scrutiny of its financing decisions.
More than 50 countries have now committed to "protecting a third of the planet" by 2030. Here's how Elizabeth Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, put it: "It is one thing to commit, but quite different to deliver. But when we have committed, we must deliver."
A sand dam in Kenya built by Excellent Development is linked to a well with a smart hand pump so you can see the volume of water being pumped each day. This helps engineers monitor the pump's performance remotely and respond to any problems quickly. Here's a story of the impact the same sand dam has had on the local community.
Whale watching in the Hebrides? Rewilding in Devon? The Guardian has some green ideas for holidays once covid permits.
Here's a global map of all the places World Land Trust is protecting.
Home schooling or teaching online? Blue Marine Foundation has some ocean-themed educational activities to help.
I learnt a lot from this 27 minute documentary on YouTube, also from Blue Marine Foundation. Did you know there are beautiful corals more than 8,000 years old in Britain? The corals in Lyme Bay were decimated in the early 2000s by heavy duty dredge fishing, with a big impact on the rest of the marine ecosystem. However, the last 10 years have seen an incredible recovery, after Blue Marine worked with regulators, local fishermen and scientists to establish a sustainable model of fishing in the area, partly inspired by a marine protected area in California. As a result, both the marine ecosystem and the fishing industry of Lyme Bay are doing well, in contrast to the rest of the country. There's hope that the lessons learned in Lyme can be rolled out elsewhere.

More things to do

Sign this petition for the Scottish government to reinstate a coastal limit on bottom-trawl and dredge fishing.
Intrigued as to why we're counting oysters as a measure of impact? If you're not zoomed out, there's a presentation next week from the Zoological Society of London describing how oyster restoration programmes benefit marine ecosystems. It's at 14:00 on Tue 16 February.

Tythe will be better with friends

As we're starting to think about new features like customising your donation split, Tythe is going to become more fun when your friends & family are involved too. Get them on-board early by sharing your personal invite link, which you can find in the Contributors section of the web app.

Bye

Thanks again for taking a punt on Tythe early on. You are helping shape its future and I'm very excited about where it's going! Please do get in touch if you have any feedback, suggestions or questions.

Dan