Goats are so last year

Look, I know that it's hard to keep up with the ever-changing environmental priorities but NHS Highland need to do better. The BBC reports:

Health staff are being asked to donate money to buy goats for Third World communities instead of exchanging Christmas cards.
Pupils from Raigmore Primary School in Inverness helped to launch the NHS Highland initiative which is aimed at supporting the Oxfam Unwrapped scheme.
The charity project suggests people give gift aid, including funding for goats, instead of Christmas presents.

At the risk of disappointing the no doubt well-meaning health staff, I have to point them in the direction of The Independent (here):

The reality is that animal gift schemes are, in the words of the conservation charity World Land Trust (WLT), "environmentally unsound and economically disastrous". In a statement last week, WLT declared: "Now that the grave consequences of introducing large numbers of goats and other domestic animals into fragile, arid environments is well documented, WLT considers it grossly irresponsible ... to continue with the schemes ... as a means of raising quick money for charities over the Christmas season".
It is incontestable that desertification and further human impoverishment will follow the introduction of goats into already degraded areas.

See Christmas presents...