Brett Jenks, Rare’s CEO, blogs about his trip to Asia, where he visited Pride campaigns taking place in China and Indonesia. Follow Brett’s adventures as he witnesses local conservation efforts to protect endangered species in Asia and shares how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in this part of the world.
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I’ve been to Beijing three times now, and I have to yet to see the Great Wall or visit The Forbidden City (just never seem to find the time), but I have greatly enjoyed beginning to work with some of China’s environmental and civic leaders to figure out what Rare can do to make a difference in China.
I arrived at sunset and after passing through customs and immigration, made it to the hotel in time to have one meeting before bedtime. Nigel Sizer, Rare’s regional VP for Asia, Shiyang Li, Rare’s director for China and Robert Delfs, in his first week as a consultant to Rare, joined me for dinner. The plan for this trip was pretty simple:
- Beijing in a day and meet with Rare’s China Advisory Committee.
- Spend five days hiking up and down Meili Snow Mountain in Yunnan Province to visit a Rare Pride campaign there.
- Meetings in Kunming, Yunnan, at Rare’s China office, which I haven’t visited since it opened a year ago.
- Fly to Indonesia to meet with Rare staff and partners in Jakarta and Bali and then head home.
Along the way, the plan was to plant the seeds for future partnerships and funding opportunities, while working with my team to learn what we can do to improve our work in the field.
Of course there are also more mundane considerations: Shiyang basically said of the rural portion of our trip, “be prepared for bed bugs, altitude sickness and diarrhea.” (And to think that I was mostly just trying to manage jet lag.)
I was pleased when Robert, who lived in Beijing and Hong Kong for over ten years as editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, gave me my first tip: When in rural China, use hand sanitizer before every meal and carry your own chopsticks. This turned out to be great advice.
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