Richard's Blog - 2011

Necker animals - Stout Iguana

Another great endangered species restoration success story! The Stout Iguana was again driven to extinction by human consumption in all neighbouring Caribbean islands by 1930 except for Anegada where the last remaining population existed happily until the introduction of wild livestock in 1970. This had catastrophic results on their population due to the increase in competition for food and the livestocks hoofs destroying the Iguanas nests.In the early 80s, several Iguanas were taken to Guana Is…

Tackling climate change from Gigaton Awards to US

Arrived in the US ready for a climate change discussion event with California Governor Jerry Brown, IPCC director Rajendra Pachauri and possibly former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, amongst others. Excited to be representing business in the conversation. As we all know, climate change threatens life as we know it – beyond melting ice caps and polar bears, it’s about economic growth, and whether we all have clean air, fresh water and enough food for us all. Tackling clima…

Israel - don't let the window of opportunity close

Met a wonderful group of Palestinian and Israeli kids in Israel who had come together through a wonderful organisation called MYTecC that was set up to use technology to help bridge the barriers between them. As one of the kids told me: "technology has no colour, no gender, and no religion." Before joining MYTecC one Israeli kid told me: "I’d move to the other side of the road if I heard an Arabic voice. Arabs would travel on Arab buses, Israelis on Israeli buses. We’d go to Israeli …

Animal magic at Ulusaba

While in South Africa there was also time to visit our stunning game reserve, Ulusaba, where we witnessed the animal kingdom in all its majesty. We saw a leopard successfully hunt down an impala, as well as a lion kill and a pack of wild dogs hunting. There was also a wonderful pride of elephants and many other beautiful, noble creatures thriving in their habitat. …

Antarctica anniversary

Today is the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen and his team's successful trip to the South Pole. Next month I'm going to Antarctica with Holly, Sam and Joan to celebrate that trip and also Capt Robert Scott (who was a relative of ours) incredible voyage there. Sadly as you know he perished on the way home. We're going on a boat organised by Al Gore to learn as much as we can from scientists and experts about where we are in the worrying cycle of Global Warming. Image by Recuerdos de P…

Pride 'n Purpose - giving the gift of hearing

This visit to South Africa has been one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives. After the Screw Business As Usual launch we travelled out into the bush for the opening of the new Pride 'n Purpose Akani crèche. Christian Slater had flown down and generously helped to open yet another school for the community. Tremendous enthusiasm from everyone there, with lots of dancing and singing. We put our handprints on the walls – not to mention on our shirts and each other's faces …

Historic day for space travel

Very exciting, historic day as Virgin Galactic welcomes the announcement of plans for a new privately built air-launched space system, which could be the foundation for safe and affordable orbital flight in the future. Paul Allen and Burt Rutan, who first worked together to produce the X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne, have announced another collaboration, this time working towards the significant challenge of orbital flight using an air-launched system. This is a long term project and wi…

Awe-inspiring Africa

We’ve had a fantastic trip in South Africa. First of all we opened the new Virgin Active in Soweto, where we met an incredibly enthusiastic group of people, including a whole lot of businesses set up around Virgin Active. From a car cleaning company to a hairdressers, these businesses work together with Virgin Active to create a real community. We will be opening more health clubs in the townships. It’s great to see so many Africans who can now afford health club membership. This …

From 1984 to Virgin Produced

A few people have tweeted me saying that they didn’t know we made films. Virgin actually has a long history in the industry and is at the cutting edge right now.The last film we made before Virgin Produced released ‘Limitless’ and ‘IMMORTALS’ was back in 1984 as Virgin Films. It was George Orwell’s classic book ‘1984’ and became a classic film too starring John Hurt and Richard Burton. Sadly it was Richard Burton’s last film. The film went t…

Necker - more species than any other island on earth

I do believe we may have more species on our 72 acre island than any other island in the world. There are a minimum of 140 species on Necker Island, not counting the visiting sea turtles and incredible sealife surrounding the island.We've been collecting photos of them all and want to share some of the beautiful creatures with you, from lemurs to soldier crabs, flamingos to iguanas.There's no place to start except with our very own tortoise, ET.  He is a Red-Footed Tortoise and was a real f…

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