He describes the legislation as ‘illogical’ and ‘very difficult to apply’,
and has expressed fears that it could undermine the authority of the Joint
Nature Conservation Committee, of which he has been chairman for the past
three months.

To make matters worse, Sir Frederick says he was not consulted over
the proposed changes.

The Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act, which comes into force next April,
will require an independent review if landowners dispute the scientific
grounds on which a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) has been designated
on their land.

There is no similar review procedure in England and Wales. Sir Frederick
believes the Scottish legislation amounts to a vote of no confidence in
the JNCC.

The committee was set up to supervise nature conservation standards
throughout Britain when the former Nature Conservancy Council was split
into three countryside councils three years ago by the then Secretary of
State for the Environment, Nicholas Ridley.

English Nature and Countryside Council for Wales were launched in April
this year; Scottish Natural Heritage takes over from the Nature Conservancy
Council for Scotland in April 1992.

Sir Frederick says the role of the JNCC, which is made up of the three
country chairmen as well as several independent members, will be untenable
if the standards it lays down for the whole of Britain are questioned in
Scotland.

He also says it is not clear what would happen if the independent advisory
committee concluded that a site did not warrant designation.

‘At the moment there is a risk that Scottish Natural Heritage will be
receiving advice from its own committee based on JNCC standards, and advice
from the independent committee without regard to JNCC standards,’ he says.

Sir Frederick adds that he anticipates repercussions in England and
Wales. ‘Already I have had landowners in England asking why should they
have different conditions,’ he says.

In Scotland, the legislation has increased concern over the future of
the huge areas of wildlife habitat, such as the peat bogs of the Flow Country,
which have been battle grounds between conservationists and the forestry
industry for several years.

John Francis, chief executive of the Nature Conservancy Council for
Scotland, said last week that Sir Frederick’s departure was ‘a bad sign
for conservation’. He added: ‘If you dilute the authority of the agency
set up by Parliament expressly for that purpose, then who do you listen
³Ù´Ç?’

Sir Frederick, a distinguished marine biologist and vice-chancellor
of the University of Durham, has agreed with Environment Minister David
Trippier that his resignation can ‘lie on the table’ until a successor is
appointed.

The ban, which will come into force in April 1994, is one of the terms
of the new environment protocol being hammered out by Antarctic Treaty nations
in Madrid this week.

Although the introduction of alien species was outlawed in 1964, an
exception was made for sledge dogs which were essential for transporting
scientists and equipment. Britain, Argentina and Australia are now the only
countries that keep huskies at their scientific bases. They have resisted
previous calls from other countries and environmental groups to phase out
the use of dogs.

John Heap, Britain’s representative in Madrid, does not believe the
dogs pose a threat to other animals. ‘I think the scientific case (that
husky dogs transmit disease to seals) is wobbly, but given that the dogs
now play no vital part in Antarctic science it is pretty difficult to oppose
this,’ he said.

David Drewry, the director of the British Antarctic Survey, agrees.
‘We see the dogs as fulfilling a role in the wider context of morale and
training, but if I was asked are the dogs essential in support of our science,
I would have to say no.’

The departure of the dogs will be mourned by many scientists and support
staff who have enjoyed their company in the harsh Antarctic conditions.
‘They have a very valuable psychological function,’ says Liz Morris, head
of the ice and climate division at the BAS.

Opportunities for horticulturists to witness the natural growing conditions
of their exotic species are all too rare, Mitchell told me. His short visit
to Brunei had convinced him that, if this situation were reversed, we might
see more exotic plants growing better in our botanical gardens, and an explosion
of ideas for presenting them to the public in more natural settings than
at present. More importantly, horticulturists have a role to play in the
conservation and breeding of rare plant species-a task which would surely
benefit from more field experience.

Mitchell was in Brunei thanks to the far-sightedness of George Argent,
a plant taxonomist from Edinburgh. Argent had invited him to help survey
and collect plant species for the Brunei Rainforest Project-a 14-month research
expedition organised by the Royal Geographical Society and the University
of Brunei.

So there he was, keen as mustard, tightening his belt by three holes
more than usual as the sweat flowed from his brow. When I caught up with
him, Mitchell was three weeks into his trip, but still marvelling at the
growing conditions which were beyond his expectations and preconceptions.

‘This whole environment is so full of energy and life,’ he enthused.
‘Out here in the tropical sunshine and high humidity, with temperatures
in the high 20s, no wonder things grow so well.’

Typically, it seems, horticulturists dealing in tropical forest plants
must rely on books, David Attenborough programmes, feedback from field scientists
during coffee breaks-even Tarzan films-to build up an impression of the
growing conditions in a rainforest environment.

That’s simply not enough, said Mitchell. He had been doing his own bit
of environmental monitoring and was bowled over by the humidity levels in
different parts of the forest at different times of the day. Early morning,
down by the river’s edge, relative humidity was hitting 92 per cent. Back
in Edinburgh’s hothouses, plants native to such parts have to make do with
morning humidity levels of just 55 per cent.

‘Even employing various cultivation techniques, such as damping down
and spraying, we can’t get overall hot house humidity levels up much beyond
70 per cent’ said Mitchell. ‘Most plants will grow reasonably well at this
level, but for those species which don’t do so well, at least we could try
to provide a more humid microclimate, if that is what they are in need of.’

If humidity levels were significantly higher than Mitchell had supposed,
the opposite was true for the amount of light available to many forest plants.
Many of the Zingerbraceae, Gesneraceae and Ericaceae, which Argent and Mitchell
had made the focus of their attention in Brunei, were receiving little more
than a couple of hours of direct sunlight a day.

‘The plants here are getting an injection of sunlight for a proportion
of the day, but not for the whole day,’ said Mitchell. ‘And the day length
here is so balanced throughout the year. Back in Scotland, we can have very
long days during the summer-up to 18 hours of daylight-and in the winter
as little as 6 hours. The plants in Edinburgh have to adapt to this very
difficult light regime.’

Another striking feature of the rainforest which Mitchell had not fully
appreciated before seeing it for real was the carpet of leaf litter lying
on the forest floor. It made him think twice about the extensive use of
peat as a growing medium by horticulturists.

Environmentalists don’t like the current exploitation of peat in the
gardening world because it is devastating the distinct flora of peat bogs.
Having seen the rich layer of leaf litter that feeds the forest, Mitchell
now maintains that peat is hardly the most appropriate growing base for
landscaped hothouses. ‘Peat may still have a role to play in the pot plant
industry, but in other circumstances-for example, the display borders at
Edinburgh-I’m convinced that we need to go back to traditional methods of
using leaf mould and organic matter.’

Soil temperatures, too, took Mitchell by surprise. Glasshouse soil temperatures
in Edinburgh are about 15 °C. In Brunei, Mitchell found them to be consistently
above 24 °C-another factor which could have a significant impact on
the growth patterns of some plants in the botanic gardens. ‘We may not need
to change soil temperatures for a whole glasshouse,’ said Mitchell. ‘We
may just need to change them for a single bed. Maybe some of the gingers
that are having difficulty flowering in Edinburgh should be put in a separate
bed with a cable running through to heat the soil to 24 °C’

When Mitchell left Brunei, he took with him a bundle of carefully packaged
living plants (all fully authorised for export, of course). If they survived
the journey, and quarantine in Edinburgh, their chances of blooming in full
glory will no doubt be enhanced when Mitchell translates his experience
of the forest into practice. He has been charged with designing the exhibition
hall for the World Orchid Congress, due to be held in Glasgow in 1993. It
is bound to reflect some of the most memorable features of Brunei’s forests.

Gardeners, scientists and conservationists alike need the skills of
horticulturists: skills which would surely be enhanced if more had opportunities,
like Mitchell, to seek ideas and inspiration from the natural world.

Debbie Macklin is a freelance science writer.

Jones is a vet, so he knows about animal welfare. He is also a trustee
of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and chairman of the Flora and Fauna
Preservation Society (FFPS), so he knows about conservation. London Zoo,
as part of the Zoological Society of London, works with both animal welfare
and conservation groups.

The source of confusion, he says, is the growing number of animal welfare
groups leaping onto the conservation bandwagon. In today’s enlightened world,
the very word ‘conservation’ lends weight to any animal cause, and is easily
hijacked. ‘Serious conservation groups would not call themselves animal
welfare organisations, whereas welfare groups do call themselves conservation
groups and have a rather muddled view of conservation.’

This, warns Jones, is one of the biggest threats to mainstream conservation
organisations, such as WWF and FFPS. Their ‘sensible priorities’ and long-term
plans could be undermined by high-profile, but ill-considered and short-term
animal welfare projects. ‘Take groups such as Elefriends, the International
Fund for Animal Welfare and Lynx: all these are trying to call themselves
conservation groups. The problem is that most of them have little understanding
of what real conservation needs are.’

The animal welfarists, he claims, have a ‘hands-off’ approach to protecting
wildlife, with their campaigns often focused on a single group of animals.
In essence their message is: ‘We hate humans doing anything to elephants
or seals or whatever.’ They are appealing to public sympathy for funds to
help them prevent any more of these animals being killed. This, he says,
‘is a very attractive message to the population at large, because 90 per
cent of them think this is what conservation is all about’.

But conservation, in Jones’s view, is a question of managing natural
resources for the mutual benefit of humans and wildlife. While wildlife
products may play a vital part in local economies, animals and people may
be competing for food and space. The hands-off approach to wildlife ignores
basic human needs, he says: ‘There are the questions of human relations
with wildlife resources; the need to be self-supporting, whole issues of
human development in the Third World.’

Conservation is not going to happen at all unless local governments
and local attitudes change, he says, and that won’t happen if foreign protesters
secure a ban on the very products which form the traditional basis of lifestyle
and economy. ‘We are talking about resources for poor people. Yes, there
is a welfare problem in the trapping of wild animals, but it is separate
to the conservation issue.’

Jones believes that the WWF and similar organisations must take the
initiative to explain to the public that conservation means more than pinning
‘Do not touch’ signs on wildlife. If they don’t, the animal welfarists will
imprint their own misleading definition of conservation on the public.

The animal welfare groups are indignant at Jones’s accusations. ‘That’s
monumental hypocrisy,’ says Stefan Ormrod, scientific director of Lynx.
‘Bosh!’ replies Ian MacPhail, European Animal Welfare Consultant for the
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). What sort of conservation
message does the public get from zoos, anyway, they ask? According to Ormrod,
Lynx doesn’t consider itself as either a conservation or an animal welfare
organisation: ‘Our main thrust is animal rights.’ Lynx’s aim is to ban trade
in all furs, be they from endangered species or not. Conservation is not
the motive, but Ormrod accepts it can be a consequence of their action:
‘Our target is the consumer. If we can make the product unacceptable, it
is a better way of protecting the animal in the long term.’

Ormrod is sceptical of Jones’s philosophy of conservation, which revolves
around the sustainable use of wildlife resources, with wildlife having to
pay its way. It doesn’t work, he says – at least, not for the fur trade.
In reality, if an animal has value in the marketplace, it will be exploited.
As long as the market remains, the exploitation will continue, leading eventually
to illegal trade in what becomes a new endangered species.

Besides, he adds, it is all too convenient to use the traditional lifestyles
of, say, the Inuit people as a reason to endorse hunting and trapping. But
most Inuit now live surrounded by the colour TVs and videos of 20th-century
lifestyles. They are no longer dependent on trapping for food and clothing;
they are merely additional suppliers to the international market.

MacPhail agrees that conservation and animal welfare are separate issues,
but says they can, and do, overlap. IFAW was founded to fight for the end
of inhumane practices in seal culling in Canada – a campaign which MacPhail
says was never billed as a conservation issue; it was pure anti-cruelty.
With that battle now won, IFAW has turned to other issues. Some encompass
conservation. Lobbying to ban the practice in the Philippines of trussing
up live dogs, destined for dinner tables, has nothing to do with conservation.
Successfully lobbying in Britain to ban lead from fishing weights because
the lead was poisoning swans was both a conservation and a welfare issue.
IFAW explains the reasons for individual campaigns to its members in newsletters.

Elefriends’ director, Will Travers, refutes the charge that his campaign
to protect the African elephant is short term and ill considered. Set up
last year to lobby for an all-out ban on ivory trade at the CITES conference
in Lausanne, Elefriends has since developed into what Travers describes
as a ‘one-stop shop’ for elephant protection. Based in the UK, the group
provides information, support for conservation and raises public awareness.

Travers does not distinguish between animal welfare and conservation.
‘You can’t judge conservation success and failure only by statistics,’ he
says. He cites the Daphne Sheldrick elephant orphanage in Kenya, where young
elephants, whose parents have been gunned down by poachers, are raised.
An expensive way to keep a few elephants alive, says Travers, but in terms
of the public involvement and popular interest it generates, it is a valuable
introduction to the wider issues of poaching and conservation.

Travers says there will always be different views about conservation
priorities. Talking about the one species that concerns him most, he says:
‘We may not all agree about how we are going about it, but we must surely
all agree that the end result should be saving the elephants.’

The same conclusion must surely apply to all species whose futures lie
in the hands of conservationists and welfarists.

Debbie Macklin is a freelance journalist and researcher who specialises
in life sciences and the environment.

Slightly bewildered, but grateful for the tip, which could have saved
him weeks of frustration, the student scribbled down the directions. He
was one of 200 hopeful young explorers to spend a weekend last November
at the Royal Geographical Society’s annual seminar on ‘Planning a Small
Expedition’. The fact that the rainforest expert knew all about Greenland
was nothing unusual at this event: the 50 advisers present – expedition
veterans, scientists and young explorers, recently returned from adventures
last summer – were not there simply to score points on their specialist
subjects; their aim was to give would-be explorers useful advice.

This year the RGS will monitor the progress of at least 500 overseas
expeditions currently being planned. Most of them will be student groups
of four or five, leaving British shores for the three-month summer vacation.
An increasing number are going in search of ‘green goals’, and want to play
their part in environmental research. Others simply want to justify the
trip of a lifetime. Whatever their motive, together they add up to a sizeable
force of research potential – well over 200,000 field days this year. Apart
from the benefit of character building, is this potential fulfilled? ‘Not
yet,’ says Nigel Winser, the RGS’s Expeditions Officer. ‘We haven’t begun
to harness this global task force.’ Students, you see, sometimes believe
they can change the world – and all in the space of three months. Student
expeditions run the riskof being unrealistic, underfunded or illprepared.
Helping them to get it rightis one of the main tasks of the RGSand its Expedition
Advisory Centre.

It pays to listen to the advice and learn what pleases the society’s
tough expedition screening panel, whose official approval can loosen the
purse strings of sponsors, but whose ‘tut-tuts’ can close the doors on overambitious
or mad-cap schemes.

There was no shortage of advice on offer at the seminar, plus a few
warnings. Gone are the days of pith helmets and colonial attitudes. To avoid
the label of ‘trespassing tourists’, diplomacy, language skills and cooperation
are vital ingredients for a successful expedition. An increasing number
of countries, quite rightly, want to be involved in any research taking
place on their soils, sand or ice. Some are demanding that local scientists
or students are taken on board at the expedition’s expense.

Diplomatic liaison takes time and patience. Not every country has a
high density of fax machines, and if you want to study lemurs in Madagascar,
you will need to seek permission by completing a pile of paperwork in French.
Typically, planning should begin at least one year in advance, and the first
question to be answered is: ‘What is the aim of this expedition?’

Setting realistic and relevant objectives is a priority. Malcolm Coe,
of the University of Oxford, shattered many an illusion that it was good
idea to pluck an endangered species out of the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature’s Red Data Book, and go in search of it to build
up a better picture of its behaviour.

‘What students forget is that the very fact that these creatures are
rare makes them jolly hard to find. In two or three months, an expedition
might be lucky to get one sighting,’ he said. At the very least, Coe added,
make sure that the search for rare species is not the main aim of the expedition.
‘If the red-footed goose happens not to be in Spitsbergen when you are,
you must have a good co-project.’

Coe was not short of examples to illustrate the follies of blinding
ambition. The plight of the African elephant attracts a great deal of attention
at the moment, and in their haste to help, student groups have put themselves
forward as survey teams. What they don’t realise, Coe says, is that there
is very little they can do in a few weeks, particularly without radio tracking
equipment, experienced vets on hand and an aeroplane. Instead, he suggests,
students might follow elephants with a bucket and spade and study the dung
beetles that live on their droppings. ‘That would be more practical and
probably reveal quite a lot about elephant behaviour too.’

Students were urged to focus on habitats and species interactions, rather
than on single rare species. They had most to offer, pleaded the advisers,
if research was set in the context of what was already known, and added
just a little bit of extra information.

Liaising with established research and conservation organisations is
advisable if you are to establish worthwhile objectives. They have clear
priorities for research and may welcome student help. The IUCN, for example,
is focusing on islands in the Indian Ocean, and next summer, two university
expeditions will help the organisation with surveys on Silhouette Island
in the Seychelles.

The role that student expeditions can play in extending the list of
species known to science seems rather uncertain. Don’t bring back hundreds
of specimens, the advisers warned, if you haven’t got a tame taxonomist
on hand when you get home. Museum cupboards are overflowing with bags and
jars awaiting analysis. Jeremy Holloway, an entomologist, claimed that for
every two weeks collecting in the field, one year was needed in the laboratory
for a detailed identification.

The advice was not limited to getting the science right. Once in the
field, practical pitfalls abound, but those who have already slipped into
them are more than willing to share the benefit of hindsight. For example,
expeditions heading into the rainforests should know that the combination
of sweat and humidity rots old clothes far more quickly than new ones, so
it’s worth splashing out on a few new T-shirts before you go. And if you
happen to arrive in the Gambian capital of Banjul in the wet season and
the streets are submerged under flood water, remember that the open sewers
are on the left hand side of the road. Last summer, a team studying dwarf
crocodiles in West Africa discovered this the hard way, and would not like
anyone else to relive the experience.

Generations of explorers have wiped the words Terra Incognita off the
face of the globe but the Age of Discovery, it seems, is far from over.

Debbie Macklin is a freelance journalist. Advice on expedition planning
can be obtained from the Expedition Advisory Centre, The Royal Geographical
Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR.

Lynda Chalker, a junior minister at Britain’s Department of the Environment,
speaking earlier this month at a conference in London, announced the package
of proposed Anglo-Brazilian research projects and expressed hope that some
of them would be under way by the end of this year. The collaborative agreement
comes at a time when Brazil is losing patience with other nations that accuse
it of mismanaging its native rainforests.

Chalker’s announcement builds on the Memorandum of Understanding signed
in July by Christopher Patten, then Britain’s Minister for Overseas Development,
and his counterpart in Brazil. Chalker was addressing British and Brazilian
delegates at the second review conference of the Maraca Rainforest Project,
a 13-month study led by Britain on the island of Maraca on the river Amazon.

James Shuttleworth, the head of the Hydrological Processes Division
of Britain’s Institute of Hydrology, is awaiting approval to join forces
with Brazil’s national Amazon research institute and its space agency on
ABRACOS. He claims that ‘there is a very substantial need to provide a more
accurate and credible prediction of the climatic consequences of large-scale
»å±ð´Ú´Ç°ù±ð²õ³Ù²¹³Ù¾±´Ç²Ô’.

He claims that existing predictions rely on mismeasurements of the amounts
of solar radiation that forests absorb and were also inaccurate regarding
the amounts absorbed by pastures left behind by deforestation. Also, Shuttleworth
suspects that climatologists have failed in the past to take account of
the effects that cloud cover has on these phenomena. He sees an urgent need
to correct these mistakes, claiming that ‘it is impossible to make sensible
planning decisions unless we have accurate numerical data’.

The package of research projects includes studies on sustainable forest
management and the Amazon’s genetic resources. Ghillean Prance, the director
of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, will direct Britain’s involvement
in the projects on genetic resources. They will include applied studies
to determine the scope for selling new products from the rainforests, both
in Brazil and abroad.

Prance believes that by marketing more products from the forest, the
researchers can help to demonstrate the commercial worth of a thriving forest.
Among the companies that support this approach are the Body Shop and the
Food Business, a British company that wants to develop ice cream flavoured
with an ingredient discovered by Prance in the fruit of a tropical tree
species, the Assai palm.

Another key feature of the project is a study of the genetic resources
of a 35-hectare reserve at Caxiuana near the mouth of the Amazon.

And then I met Monica Kristensen.

Hailed in her native Norway as the ‘Snow Queen’, this striking blonde
expert on icebergs defies all stereotypes of the frostbitten polar tough
guy. Sporting the bright embroidered woollen dress of national costume,
she came to London this month to accept an award which places her alongside
such legendary heroes of exploration as Stanley and Livingstone of Africa,
Hunt and Hilary of Everest, and the polar pioneer Sir Robert Falcon Scott.
She received the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, for her ‘outstanding
contribution to scientific discovery in the Antarctic’. The last woman honoured
with the Gold Medal was Dame Freya Stark, way back in 1942.

At 38, Kristensen is already a veteran of 15 scientific missions to
the Arctic and Antarctic. Most recently she led the British-backed expedition,
’90Degree South’, with three men and a team of huskies. They retraced the
steps of Amundsen, the first man (and also a Norwegian) to reach the South
Pole more than 70 years ago. In fact, the team was forced back by bad weather
just short of the pole itself, but then get ting there was not half as important
to Kristensen as what they achieved en route.

Admitting – with a twinkle in her eyes – that she is ‘totally uncompetitive’,
Kristensen says that she isn’t looking for glory or masochism in the Antarctic.
She apologises if it sounds boring, but it is mainly the scientific challenge
and rewards in this frozen laboratory that spur her on.

She wanted to be a scientist ever since she was a child. ‘When I was
young, no body told me which books were boring. So I used to borrow things
from the library, on topics such as Einstein’s theory of special relativity,
and books on the expanding Universe. I thought they were fascinating.’ Such
uninhibited bedtime reading as a child obviously paid off. Most of her work
now is linked to the relationship between the greenhouse effect and changes
in the ice cap at the South Pole – namely, the fact that it is melting.

Few women leave their boot prints in the vast white desert of Antarctica.
It was only two years ago that the British Antarctic Survey started allowing
women to be based at their research stations, and although Norway’s sex
discrimination laws opened up the poles to women scientists in 1976, Kristensen
says that it is still ‘very unusual’ to see them involved.

In the claustrophobic communities of the wintering stations and expedition
tents, Kristensen admits it is tough to be in a minority of one, adding:
‘But it’s tough for everybody. Anything which sets you apart as an individual
will make it difficult for you and perhaps for the others. The fact that
I am a woman may not necessarily mean that I am going to have the most difficult
³Ù¾±³¾±ð.’

Her diaries, which stretch back to her first winter in the Arctic station
in Svalbard, are testimony to the sort of character it takes to stick it
out against the weather and the colleagues she calls ‘the boys’.

Reading back over them amuses Kristensen. ‘I marvel at how resilient
I must have been, and also how extremely stubborn. Although I had views
which often clashed with the others’, I always stuck to them.’

On the subject of hunting, for example, she says: ‘I’m not against hunting,
but I think it should be a profession for hunters. I dislike intensely that
we should come up as complete (hunting) amateurs and because you are in
the polar region, you are supposed to kill something – even though you don’t
need the food and you don’t need the fur – because it will boost your macho
image, even if you are a woman.’

She has strong views, too, about huskies and trained her own team for
the 90 Degree South expedition, believing them to be far safer and more
reliable than the motorised sledges widely used in polar research today.

Kristensen’s relationship with Antarctica is complicated, to say the
least. ‘Antarctica is such a huge, vast place and you really get to feel
that. The environment certainly affects people’s psychology, and I don’t
think you could imagine anything more desolate or frightening.

‘But having said such nasty things about the place, I must confess that
being there actually makes me feel really happy. It’s like walking a tightrope.
It’s the pleasure of working together with people who are so professional.
With the dogs and our equipment, I feel part of a team which really knows
what it is doing, and doing it so well in such a very hostile environment.’

It took five years to select the right combination of people for 90
Degree South. ‘The initial choosing of people is extremely important,’ says
Kristensen. ‘It’s not necessary to know everyone extremely well beforehand,
so long as everyone is on the same level of experience and that they are
‘polar people’, that they have that mentality and attitude.’

Polar people can cope with deprivation. When the stock of books ran
out on 90 Degree South, Kristensen read and reread the back of a cornflake
packet.

‘It would be a disaster if you had people who for some reason developed
instabilities – people who suddenly wanted to do something extremely dangerous
or wanted to become heroes. It’s important to go on preparatory tests –
to go out and see how everyone behaves when the weather gets really bad
and miserable. It doesn’t take long before any adverse traits show up –
perhaps a week.’

Fear, which her male colleagues either encounter less often or admit
to less willingly, is not unfamiliar to her. ‘The worst kind of fear is
not one you experience immediately. Yes, I have fallen down crevasses a
few times – not very deep ones, but ones where I am hanging from the edge
by my arms. But at these times everything happens too quickly.

‘But there have been times when we have been in danger for long periods.
It’s like having danger walking there with you. You don’t feel panic, almost
nothing at all. It’s just this frightening feeling staying with you, eating
away at you and that is a strain.’

Debbie Macklin is a freelance journalist.