Flying high over Indonesia's forests
I'm not sure how I managed to persuade my superiors to release me from my normal London-based duties and travel to Indonesia to join the Esperanza for two months, but whatever I did, it worked. I'm here for the second leg of the Forests For Climate extravaganza - the first half covered Papua New Guinea and now the show has moved across the border to the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.
We're focusing our efforts on the growth of the palm oil industry, which threatens to engulf the region's magnificent forests and we're gradually working our way towards the centres of production. Never far from our minds is the massive impact forests have on the whole climate change thing - good if they’re left as they are, bad if they're put to the chainsaw.
But at the end of last week, I was privileged to see some of this verdant expanse for myself. Much of what we're doing here involves research and documentation: finding which areas of forest are still intact, and where logging has begun. This means plenty of trips out over the forest for Tweety, our small but nimble helicopter, and on Friday I was one of the passengers.
I've published a full account on the tour blog, but suffice to say I was literally buzzing when I got back to the ship and have been burbling incessantly about it to anyone who will sit still long enough. Having written about the forest campaign for nearly three years now, the one thing I was missing was first-hand experience of a real, honest-to-god rainforest. Not anymore.
The Esperanza is also now on Twitter so come and join us for the next few weeks on our Indonesian odyssey.
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