Tea break

Taking a break from saving the world this afternoon, the trustees and executives of Earthwatch Institute posed on the steps of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. I've been involved with Earthwatch since 1995 when I wrote about one of its research programmes in Poland. A couple of years later I went to another one of its projects, this time in Madagascar and shortly after that, joined The European board.

Eco tourism didn't exist before Earthwatch came on the scene and it still doesn't exist in Earthwatch, even thought there are quite a few outfits today offering people holidays that get them close to nature.

Earthwatch is research-led, and volunteers who join its programmes support scientists undertaking research and data collection. The idea of paying to work abroad for a couple of weeks may not appeal to some, but working with people who are often the leading experts in their field, sometimes in quite remote regions, can be highly rewarding and some volunteers have described their experience as life changing. Gill has been on a couple of projects too - one looking at turtles in Malaysia and another studying crocodiles in the Okavango Delta. When I booked her on that last one, some thought, unkindly, I was trying to get rid of her. I suppose it did look a bit fishy.