Pledging commodities to a bank, often using a warehouse receipt as proof of ownership, has become a popular way of obtaining finance in China, often to skirt restrictions on raising credit and helping drive up stockpiles at some ports.Ĭoncerns over the events in Qingdao may push foreign banks to cut their commodity financing business in China, Goldman Sachs said in a note on June 9. On Tuesday, two police sources with direct knowledge of the matter said the Qingdao Port Authority and the city’s police were investigating a private metals trading firm, Decheng Mining, over a suspected metal financing scam at the port.Ī staff member at Decheng Mining’s Qingdao office, who would only give his surname as Liu, would not comment and a Singapore-registered associate company did not respond to a series of calls requesting comment. “I’m hopeful the red kite chicks bound for Spain will flourish in the same way the chicks that arrived to this country a generation ago did, as we support those helping to rebuild the population and the prospects of this magnificent bird in southern Europe.The Red Kite Group, which has more than $2.3 billion under management, covers a range of activities in the metals industry, including physical trading, mine finance and arbitrage strategies. “It’s a clear blueprint for the future of species reintroductions, particularly for some of our most endangered birds. ![]() Natural England chairman Tony Juniper said: “The reintroduction of red kites to England is the most successful raptor conservation story in Europe. “It is amazing that we are now able to support conservation action for red kites in Spain and to reciprocate their previous generosity in supplying donor stock for our original reintroduction project in England.” “Following concerted conservation action in the UK in recent decades, this species’ population has greatly recovered. “Compared to most of our other native birds of prey it has a relatively small global population. ![]() The RSPB’s Duncan Orr-Ewing, who organised the first red kite reintroduction programme in Scotland and is now advising the latest project, said: “The red kite population is confined to Europe. This year, all the chicks going to Spain have been collected by Forestry England from nests in the public forests it cares for, as well as from the Boughton Estate in Northamptonshire. While many bird of prey and vulture populations have recovered, the red kite population has remained at low levels.Ī collaboration between Spanish and British conservation organisations – and involving some of the people from the original England and Scotland red kite reintroduction projects – is set to supply 30 wild red kite chicks a year for three years from the large healthy population in the East Midlands. The once-vanished bird is now soaring over countryside, gardens and towns across swathes of the UK, and the population is estimated at 6,000 breeding pairs, with 4,500-5,000 of those in England.Ĭonservationists say the project has been so successful that red kite chicks can be supplied in return from England back to Spain to help with efforts to conserve the species in that country.īreeding populations in Spain have declined substantially, mainly due to a legacy of illegal poisoning, which Spanish authorities have taken major steps to address in recent years, wildlife experts said. Shakespeare writes of a “city of kites and crows” in his play Coriolanus, while their reputation for stealing laundry hung out to dry for their nests gets mentioned in The Winter’s Tale.īut the birds’ fortunes declined in the face of persecution and also egg collecting, and by the 20th century they were extinct in both England and Scotland.Ī red kite flying over frosty landscape (Ben Andrew/RSPB/PA)Ī trial reintroduction of red kites to both England and Scotland used birds mainly brought from Spain for the English scheme, and from Sweden for the Scottish releases. ![]() Red kites, a large bird of prey that largely feeds on carrion and worms and cuts a distinctive silhouette with wing tips that look like splayed fingers and a forked tail, were common city scavengers in medieval London. A project to bring red kites back to UK skies is now sending chicks to help conservation efforts in Spain, which supplied birds for the highly successful reintroduction scheme.Ĭonservationists say the red kite reintroduction is the UK’s most successful bird conservation project to date, and has done so well in its 33 years that English chicks can now be donated to efforts to help the birds in Spain.
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