This isn’t likely to be the most popular blog post I’ve written, but I believe that in amongst Gove’s idea to buy the Queen a yacht are some genuinely good ideas.

Here’s what happens in my mind…

Before the much scorned memo is circulated, someone at the Department for Education gets hold of it and makes a few minor amendments.

1. The ship is named RV QE2 – yep that’s right, it’s a research vessel

2. The cost of the vessel – proposed £60 million is split between the cost of a research vessel (£30 million) and a national endowment of the other half to run the good ship RV QE2

3. The RV QE2 circumnavigates Britain on an ongoing basis with a rotating crew of scientists, teachers and pupils learning about the oceans

4. The UK becomes the most-aware nation on this blue planet – spinning out great research, ideas and technologies for more sustainable seas

5. HM Queen Elizabeth II launches the ship on behalf of the country for her Diamond Jubilee and calls for a renewed sense of ourselves as an island nation and the value of our marine resources and the importance of the oceans to humanity

In terms of funding, reckon we could get a good lot of private money behind this – not a bad PR opportunity.

But that’s just in my mind. Not a bad idea in itself, just not quite the right focus. Who knows, this idea could have made this country the first in the world to have a floating academy.

Here are some personal highlights in no particular order (I missed lots, I know, so please feel free to add comments on what I should have seen, who I should have spoke to, etc.)

1. Janapar film screening

Much praise to Tom Allen for having the courage to put his emotions and journey on the big screen for all to see. Delighted that this private screening was a part of Explore. Do sign up to hear more about the next part of this adventure – bringing the film to festivals and the public.

2. Atlantic Rising

A wonderful, humorous and thought-provoking talk from the Atlantic Rising crew, recipients of the Land Rover Go Beyond Bursary. Great that they had the platform they deserve and fantastic to see a continuing educational legacy on their new website.

3. foldedsheet

It’s simple, elegant and packs a huge communications punch. I hope you had the chance to meet Luce and see the examples of her work. Here’s an example of Al Humphreys’ latest book using foldedsheet…

4. Pangaea Expedition

I was sorry to miss Emily’s talk but managed to catch up afterwards to hear more about this fantastic oceans expedition project. They are looking at oceans plastic at the moment and hope to be able to work with them in the future.

5. The fact that this happens at all

Massive thanks to Shane, Amy and all the team at Geography Outdoors at the RGS. It’s an annual highlight, meeting with old friends, making new ones and finding out that exploration in the UK and beyond is in rude health. A huge achievement!!

Oh and I’ll never think about hippos in the same way…

If only we arrange our life according
to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult,
then that which now still seems to us
the most alien will become what we
most trust and find most faithful.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Watch Conservation’s Dirty Secrets: Dispatches, Channel 4, Monday 20th June: 8pm

Digital Explorer Director, Oliver Steeds travels the globe to investigate the conservation movement and its major organisations.

‘Species are becoming extinct at a rate of 1000 to 10,000 times higher than it would naturally be without humans.’
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature

Remarkably it was only in 1986 when scientists discovered something called prochlorococcus – an ocean dwelling bacteria that produces 20% of the oxygen that we breathe. In other words, it was only 25 years ago we found out what made life possible on our little planet. Most of us, me included, have no real clue that our existence depends on all sorts of species we’ve never heard of. Nor do we know what’s happening to them.

We’re in a golden age of discovery but a dark age of destruction. We’re discovering species at a faster rate than any time in human history, but we’re destroying them on a scale last documented 251 million years ago with the demolition of the dinosaurs. The eminent biologist EO Wilson believes we’re losing 30,000 species a year increasing to 200-300,000 species per year in a couple of decades. And we know what’s causing this – it’s me, it’s you, it all of us, the collective choices we make that are consigning species to the land of the Dodo every single day.

Conservation is crucial. And we need to get it right. The purpose of our film is not to make you throw up your hands and stop supporting conservation – far from it – its crucial we tackle these uncomfortable realities head on so we can develop better conservation practices on the ground.

I’ve always struggled with trying to define ‘conservation’. What we found making this film is that conservation means many things to many people, the movement is diverse, and we can’t simply say there is a unity of thoughts, values and practices. If anything, it’s a broad church, ridden with conflict and the pains of conservation are too often borne by those least able to bear it – the poorest, most vulnerable people on our planet. The science of biodiversity can tell us what is happening but not what we want to conserve. As one conservationist we interviewed explained: ‘We’re not playing God, we’re playing God’s accountant’.

So what is it that we should prioritise and who should decide? Pandas or plankton? Tigers or termites? Is it either-or? Is science or sentimentality defining our choices of whether we’re prioritising vulnerable, irreplaceable or even biodiversity that is valuable to ecosystem health and continuing our ability to live on the planet? Why is so difficult to find quantifiable system of measurements that are needed to make informed decisions?

Conservation work is undeniably complex, riddled with contradictions and competition but it fundamentally it is underpinned by our own relationships to nature. We’re the cause and we can be the effect. Turn on our TVs and the natural world is often presented either as pristine or through an anthropomorphised looking glass – and that kind of makes sense. We need to love nature before we will want to conserve it. But we shouldn’t be deluded from what is really happening.

In Britain, most of us say we love animals – but in reality that only translates to our cats and dogs and perhaps a few charismatic wild animals. We can’t hide from the blatant contradiction of how we treat other animals, such as the factory farmed chickens and pigs that end up on our plates. As a society we’re becoming increasingly urbanised, increasingly disconnected from the natural world, from the food on our plates, and from the natural processes that make life possible. Of course, as the disconnect grows, so the natural world suffers.

For millennia, man has been driven to transform nature, and humanity will move forward through the advancements of science and technology. As a species we’re coming to a crossroads. We can continue to disconnect from nature and we will continue to destroy it until something cataclysmic occurs that will either wake us from our delusions of immortality or destroy us.

There is a cost to our progression and we need to awaken to the realisation of the costs: the species that we will lose; the destruction of human diversity; the damage to our environment, the list grows by the day. We all have choices.

Sitting around a campfire with a Samburu Elder in Kenya, a man who had been abused by Joy Adamson (of Born Free fame) and been marginalised by tourist lodges and conservation parks, he shared with me an African proverb, which I hope we carry at the heart of our film:

‘Until the lions have their praise singers, the tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.’

Broadcast details
This weekend Dr Victoria Hill presents a BBC Earth Reporters documentary about the Catlin Arctic Survey. The programme screens on BBC World (02:30 & 09:30 28/5 or 15:30 & 21:30 29/5). If you’re unable to watch BBC World TV, you can view the programme from the Open University website from this Friday.

With the final episode of the Pakistan episode launched last week, it’s time to celebrate the achievements of the young people as they start on their journeys and to thank all the funders, supporters and collaborators who made this possible.

Special thanks to the financial backers of the project, who put their faith in us to deliver something. I hope that they have watched the video below and are proud of what they have allowed to happen.

Now the long journey to find the funding for the next one…

Good morning class, here's your new teacher

I didn’t recognise Tenzin Tsepak initially. The streets around the main temple complex in McLeod Ganj, North India, were thronging with a crowd welcoming HH the Dalai Lama back on his return from a trip to the USA. Tenzin, of course, looked older, since we first met fifteen years ago. He was also now a layman. A “turbulent” marriage with a American woman had ended a number of years previously, and a diet of pizza and masala chai from the new monastery cafe had replaced the meagre rations of the monastic kitchen.

We caught up on this and that, eventually turning to what we were up to at the moment. Tenzin currently works as a translator for HH the Dalai Lama. I explained the work that I do with Digital Explorer and the problems that I faced trying to create a compassionate response from young people in Britain regarding issues that seem very far away. Why should a teenager care if his trainers are made in a sweatshop or that the ice shelves around the Antarctic and disappearing with their wildlife because of climate change?

How does one increase mindfulness concerning issues and problems that are so distant from our everyday lives? Initially, Tenzin thought that I was asking a direct question about addressing suffering.

“It is there in the teachings, how we should deal with suffering.”

I explained that it was a problem of contemplating the suffering of other people and environments in distant places.

“Aah. This is subtle.”

We both laughed. There are no easy answers.

“They should meditate on this.”

We laughed again.

In my mind’s eye, I imagined a geography teacher stood in front of a class in Derbyshire.

“Right class, we’ve been studying Antarctica for the past few weeks. What I would like you to do now is meditate on the effects your personal habits have on ice shelf degradation. Let’s start with a mantra… Om…”

Ridiculous in so many ways and so right in others. I don’t see this form of education becoming a likely piece of pedagogical innovation any time soon, but it does raise questions about how and why we educate. Empathy exercises were fashionable for a time, role-plays and drama, but these seem more conceptual than compassionate activities designed to enhance understanding.

We talked about the recent expedition to Pakistan, and the importance of direct experience to create a compassionate attitude for others less fortunate and environments under threat. We agreed that those few who do have the opportunity of direct experience had a great responsibility to share and help others understand.

As we hone the expedition and education model for Digital Explorer, I have come up against this barrier of how the journey of a few can become a gateway for understanding for many. We are making great strides in creating transformative journeys for teams of young people, with the Pakistan expedition being our most successful to date.

The next months will be preparing the educational programme. This year’s expedition was the first that hasn’t been live. The security implications of broadcasting live video revealing the team’s identity and location, opened up some exciting new ways of working. We have decided to broadcast each day’s episode with associated blog posts on a weekly basis (starting on 10 November on www.offscreenexpedition.com). This not only allows teachers and pupils time to enjoy and debate the issues surrounding each episode, but also creates a three month window for the expedition participants to talk to schools and youth groups and for the expedition leaders to work with teachers.

And this is the real lesson that I learnt from talking to Tenzin. No amount of digital wizardry can replace the simple impact of one concerned and impassioned human being sharing their experiences directly with another.

Within this ongoing saga, I have two roles: one as Director of Digital Explorer and the second as a member of Council of the Royal Geographical Society. My name has been used to support various stances and this article seeks to put the record straight.

As Director of Digital Explorer, I have a clear and unwavering vision of
what exploration and expeditions can be. This vision has as its basis my experiences as a geography and citizenship teacher in secondary schools in the UK. The problem that I faced and now seek to address is how to engage young people in global issues such as climate change, habitat conservation and cultural understanding.

The model that we have developed at Digital Explorer is focused just as much on educational output as field research. Teams of young people or scientists work in the field to investigate an issue and then share this with schools around the world using a combination of multi-media and satellite technologies via an interactive website. This model brings the frontiers of knowledge direct to the classroom. Recent examples of our work include taking a team of students to Pakistan to counter negative media stereotypes (first episode to be broadcast on Monday 8 November) and working with a team in Antarctica, powering an education base using renewable energy.

This appreciation of schools and young people as an important audience for expeditions is not exclusive to Digital Explorer, and our evolution over the past few years has coincided with an increasing number of expeditions creating educational resources and interacting live from the field with pupils.

With this background and context in mind, I can happily state the following beliefs:

1. Expeditions should work to inspire the next generation to be truly global citizens by enhancing their understanding of the world
2. Expeditions should aspire to a professional level of communications (through film, photography and writing, both on and offline)
3. An expedition’s objectives should relate to wider societal concerns
4. The world of exploration is big enough to encompass a range of different types and styles of expedition (taking into account the above points)
5. An expedition that is inspiring and exciting is more likely to engage an educational and generalist audience

These are my personal views and have their practical expression through my work with Digital Explorer and in aiding other expeditions to utilize technologies such as the internet, Google Earth, video, photography and social media to share their experiences and finding, in particular with a youth and educational audience.

In my role as a recently elected Ordinary Councillor for Education of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), my first responsibility is to act in the best interests of the Society. The Society has a great history and more importantly has a strong current position sitting at the crossroads of robust research, world-respected expertise in expeditions and a central position in formal geography education. Through combining these strengths, the Society has a unique opportunity to disseminate new knowledge about the world to a school and generalist audience. This is something to be celebrated.

As Ordinary Councillor for Education, I have a particular interest in two excerpts from the Review:

We plan to deliver five new Research Partnership Initiatives over the next ten years:

Supporting outreach and education activities as a partner in large projects organised by other groups, bringing the Society’s considerable expertise in involving wider communities in research and disseminating results to schools, the general public and policy makers.

and

To ensure that we make more of the Society’s commitment to research and discovery through fieldwork, we propose the following:

Provide added value, for example, developing educational resources to share the findings of selected Society-supported projects with teachers and pupils and the public.

I welcome the recent announcement of the ‘From the Field’ Awards in collaboration with The Goldsmiths’ Company, enabling geography teachers to work alongside research expeditions to develop educational resources for the classroom, and look forward to giving what expertise I have in this area to aid the Society in delivering on the Review.

In terms of the shape and focus of Society supported expeditions, I imagine that there will be interesting debates, passionate but not heated, in the months to come. My bias will be towards supporting those expeditions that inspire and educate, but there will be others with different backgrounds and different views.

I believe in a ‘both/and’ rather than an ‘either/or’ world, and I would ask those who seek to portray me as belonging to one camp or another to read this article, respect my views and support this vision.

The Google Earth layer prepared for the FCO and Met Office is featured on Channel 4 News. It is the most complex Google Earth layer that Digital Explorer has created to date and we are very proud that it has got such exposure.

We look forward to the layer being used in classrooms across the world to inspire young people to make a difference and seize the opportunity to develop green enterprise and technologies.

The layer can be downloaded from the FCO website.

Mine are…

What is your top tip for those planning an expedition?

Integrate your communications and education plans from the outset. You have the ability to inspire a huge range of people to make a difference.

What item do you always take with you on an expedition?

Satellite communications kit. It’s a real joy to be able to share an expedition in real-time with an audience back home.

Get the October issue or come along to Explore to find out more.

Also see the January article on Digital Explorer.