Gift shopping can be a frustrating, hair pulling affair at the best of times, especially when you have no clue what to get. Most people stick with the safe option of getting the gift voucher, that way there’s zero chance of gift rejection with the recipient sneaking to the department store to get an exchange behind your back.

It seems that the frontier for gift giving has all but been explored, that there is nothing people haven’t seen and that it’s difficult to make a show stopping impression anymore.

There are however, some little known gems that go way beyond the ordinary and will leave your gift recipients floored. These are gifts with an eye toward the environment and I’m not talking about the usual gift suspects of recycled decorated boxes wrapped in the eco-friendly biodegradable wrapping paper either. You can take pride in the fact that while other gifts will fade into distant memory right alongside those old pair of grey socks, your gift will be the stuff legends are made of and be forever immortalized in the heart and mind of your loved one.

Forget organic soaps and scents, recycled raffia gift baskets and pasta picture frames, why not get something truly unforgettable?

How would your loved one feel to know that they are the proud foster parent of a dolphin?

http://www.redballoondays.co.nz/category/at-home-experiences/going-green

The team at Red Balloon have cleverly devised the opportunity of a lifetime for your lucky gift recipient to adopt a dolphin for a year and is available to anyone worldwide.

You have the choice of adopting one of five dolphins where you get to follow its activities throughout the 12 months. Once you adopt your dolphin you will be sent a picture postcard of him or her, your very own personalized adoption certificate, regular dolphin updates and newsletters regarding the conservation of dolphins and whales. Not only are you giving a great gift but you are also supporting dolphin perseveration, this beautiful, regal creature is never far from the endangered species list. Their numbers are dwindling as the result of our presence and the pressures we place on our environment affecting the balance of their natural habitat.

If you’d like to be even more exotic, how about adopting an orca whale instead? The same concept applies with dolphin adoption where you get to monitor your orca through a series of updates while giving the benefit of preservation of this magnificent creature.

Another great gift idea is donating to the WWF Wild life fund for the preservation of endangered species: http://www.worldwildlife.org you can either make a donation or adopt one of their 90 species of animals from the Snow Leopard to the Panda, Polar Bear, Penguin, Tiger, Pygmy Elephant and more. You adopt the cuddly toy version of the animal of your choice and along with it, you receive an adoption certificate.

A breathtaking film called “Earth” created by the BBC recently made its way onto Disney’s screens http://disney.go.com/disneynature/earth/ to mark the opening of Earth Day (April 22nd).

It was edited from over 100,000 hours worth of stunning footage and details the lives and direct impact on animals from global warming as a result of human influence. The films conclusion leaves the choice in our hands with a simple website address to visit and learn more about what we can do.

We can preserve some of the endangered species from the film such as the Amur Leopard of Russia the most endangered species in the world. Poaching and the lack of natural prey has driven them to the brink of extinction and there are thought to be less than 30 in existence today.

There are several other animals on the endangered species list that you can choose to protect with your donation. You can either opt to protect a particular species or let the fund decide where the money would bring the most benefit. The Wildlife Fund works in association with local communities, recognizing that working for the protection of these animals with local support is essential to their survival.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcwildlifefund

The legacy the late, great Steve Irwin left behind was that if we taught people to love nature and our environment then they would want to protect it.

So there you have it, some great out of the box gift ideas that not only preserve nature but make you look like a rock star in the process.

Happy gift hunting.