Peter and Miranda moved to Portugal in 1983 to establish and run A Rocha’s first field study centre. Together with their four children they lived at the centre for twelve years until 1995 when the work was given over to national leadership. They then moved to establish A Rocha France’s first centre near Arles, and lived there until 2010, providing coordination and giving leadership to the rapidly growing global movement. They are now back in the UK from where they work to support the A Rocha family around the world while being closer to their own, and not least their grandchildren. Their story is told in Under the Bright Wings (1993) and Kingfisher’s Fire (2008).
If anyone has earned the right to comment about monetizing nature it is Christiaan Bakkes: he spent twenty years in Namibian conservation organizations helping it to happen. But at the heart of the enterprise was a contradiction which is undoing all the gains of the previous fifteen years. Now the wildlife is being decimated.
