What a Day...The Lost World Expedition is GO!

What a Day...

All the hard work, twenty hour working days (including weekends) and endless telephone calls has all come to a head as the ten participants, film crew and doctor flew out of London Heathrow at around 6.45am yesterday morning, on what proved to be an incredibly hectic, sometimes stressful but thoroughly rewarding day. Here's what happened...

If you've been following these blogs you will know that The Lost World Project is an innovative initiative that looks to make a conservation documentary about the plateau that inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write his famous novel 'The Lost World'. It is Ibex Earth's first major project and has seen ten students from the UK selected to travel to Mount Roraima, Venezuela to join a critically acclaimed film crew and help shoot the documentary!

Friday 20th of August was the date that the participants and film crew jetted off, but nothing ever quite goes to plan with these things!

The Lost World Team met at the airport at the delightful hour of 2.45am, well in advance of our scheduled departure - it was fantastic to see how excited the whole group were and that all of their hard work and fundraising was going to be rewarded in such a great way (to be honest both myself, and fellow Ibex Earth Director Ronald Ndoro, were very jealous that they got to go on the trip!). It took over an hour for the unnamed airline to open their gates and off we went to check in - or so we thought.

The airline had for some reason overbooked the flight and the whole team was on the waiting list - disaster! The airline had made a huge error and it looked as though we were going to have to wait for 24 hours (at the earliest) before we got to send the group to Caracas. An hour went by and the airline were frantically looking at what had gone wrong, it soon got to 5am and we were still no closer to getting onboard the plane - it wasn't looking good!

Then we got our break and the Team was upgraded to business class and then began the check in process, only to find out that the airline closed the baggage gate for the plane!!! Unbelievable - £100,000 worth of camera equipment wasn't going to get onto the plane...

Whilst all this was happening I was having to plead and beg with UK customs to come across the airport and sign some of our papers to get the equipment through UK customs - we were very lucky that a fantastic customs worker decided to take pity on me (it could have been the tears, the nervous shaking...but it was probably the tears) and he stamped all of the papers to get us through customs! Then the race began - a quick sprint across the terminal (some have described this as a waddle, but I would have rivalled Usain Bolt that morning) and on production of the document we were away and the baggage started loading as the airline very kindly agreed to hold up the entire plane for us as our equipment was loaded up!

This probably made the whole team the least popular people on the plane scheduled for Lisbon and then Caracas, but we did it! All the participants, film crew etc were onboard safely and were off in the direction of Mount Roraima. A few high-fives later and it was back to bed, as the flight went over the hotel to begin the expedition.

This really does promise to be something special and I will try and keep you all updated via this blog - fingers crossed the Team will be able to send back some photographs for us very soon.

Chris

The Lost World Project at ZSL London Zoo

What an unbelievable ten days - the climax of a nationwide competition to find ten students at UK universities to join the 'Lost World Expedition', which looks to shoot a broadcast quality documentary about the plateau that inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write the most famous adventure novel of all time - 'The Lost World'.

It is a story of explorers travelling deep into the jungles of Venezuela to climb a vast plateau where they discover dinosaurs and lost human civilizations - we don't think we will find either on the summit of Mount Roraima this time, but we will be working BBC Planet Earth cameraman Rob Franklin to shoot some incredible images of the unique wildlife and incredible scenary that is found atop of this remarkable plateau.

In January - February 2010 Ibex Earth embarked on a UK wide tour to provide students with seminars about the 'lost world' - over twenty five talks were given, which saw Stewart McPherson provide 2,000 students with an overview of the project and the urgent conservation issues that are currently facing Mount Roraima. I guess this would be a great point to mention that the overall purpose of The Lost World Project is that Mount Roraima has a future by introducing sustainable/regulated tourism and trying to put a halt to the illegal goldmining that takes place on Roraima's summit.

Over 1,000 students signed up to the project and began fundraising for the chance to win a place on the expedition - we've seen students cycle the length of the UK, ride from London to Paris and walk the Hadrian's Wall in its entirity without stopping! We've met some absolutely amazing people and the worst part of the project was not being able to take everyone with us...

We are now in the final stages of preparing for the expedition, which should leave our shores on August 20th 2010 - but before then we have the fortune to launch the expedition in collaboration with the ZSL London Zoo on August 10th 2010 - an event to which you are all invited to - just visit http://www.ibexearth.com/ and follow the links to The Lost World Project where you will find all the information you need.

The event kicks off at 18:00 at the ZSL London Zoo, in the Prince Albert Lawn & Terrace where you will be welcomed with a drink and the chance to meet members of the Lost World Team, including Stewart McPherson (expedition leader) and Rob Franklin (BBC Planet Earth). There will then be a series of talks from Stewart, Adrian Warren (advisor to Walt Disney in 'UP') and representatives from the Zoological Society of London - the talks will start at 19:00 and the evening will wrap up with a raffle and auction...it will be a fantastic event at an amazing venue.

To reserve your place please just email us at lostworld@ibexearth.com

Welcome to the Ibex Earth Blog...

Just a really quick intro - my name's Chris Livemore and I am the Founder of Ibex Earth, which is a not for profit organisation that was established back in 2008 to provide support, advice and assistance to environmental charities and other not for profits. This blog is really designed to provide an insight into all things Ibex Earth and future blogs will include information about our Environmental & Conservation Partners as well as other exciting environmental projects we are developing...

So where to start - this has probably been the busiest few weeks of our lives at Ibex Earth HQ, working twenty hour days, seven days a week and surviving on caffeine, sugar hits and the generosity of friends and Ibex Earth supporters.

We've been going through the final planning stages for www.thelostworldproject.org, which is our first major environmental project - if you haven't heard about it already we are taking a critically acclaimed film crew to the plateau that inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write what is arguably the most famous adventure novel of all time 'The Lost World' and has most recently been the major influence behind Walt Disney and Pixar's animated blockbuster 'UP'.

On August 20th 2010, ten students from the UK will be joining the film crew (which actually includes Rob Franklin, a BBC Planet Earth cameraman) to help shoot a fifty minute broadcast quality documentary about Mount Roraima and its urgent conservation needs. The final film will be premiered at the Royal Geographical Society in April/May 2011 at what we hope will be one of the environmental events of the year!

If you would like to know more about this project then why not come long to our event at the ZSL London Zoo on August 10th 2010 - the event starts at 18:00 and is being held in the Prince Albert Suite, Lawn and Terrace - it promises to be a great event and for more information please send me an email at chris.livemore@ibexearth.com and I will send you an invite!

The project is all coming to a head now, loads and loads of work, hundreds of phonecalls and some last minute fundraising - but to be fair it has been great fun, we've met people from the WWF, the Royal Geographical Society, National Geographic, the BBC and of course the ZSL London Zoo - wouldn't change this project for the world and will update this blog with photos, updates and more info about Mount Roraima over the next few weeks - we will also be getting other Ibex Earth Directors and staff to start writing up some blogs so we can give you a complete overview about our work.

Hope that you enjoy reading the blogs!