Richard's Blog - June 2012

Are you here to save us? Or to save face?

Behind the scenes there are thousands of small organisations in Rio doing wonderful work. They are trying to do the best they can without a global Government framework, but what is dearly needed is the Government to come up with a clear action plan. There are many mealy-mouthed words in the text that has come out of Rio. With lots of grand statements prefaced by words like 'seek to endeavour' making them as good as meaningless. From 20 years ago, almost everything has gone backwards. There has b…

Magnificent Madagascar

Having travelled all over Madagascar recently, it was so sad to see 95% of the beautiful rainforests are being destroyed. But at least the remaining 5% is absolutely magnificent, with more diversity of species than almost anywhere else in the world. The problem for the lemurs is that they are spread throughout Madagascar in small pockets and logging is continuing. Lemurs like the red ruffed lemur are in particular peril. A zoo that fully supports the programme we’re doing on Moskito Is…

Screwing Business as Usual at Rio+20

Some 20 years ago, Gro Bruntland had the wonderful vision to see that the world needed to change the way we do business. I recently read her “Our Common Future” report from the Rio summit in October 1987 and was saddened that the world had not yet heeded her call when she stated: “We must break away from our sectoral ways of viewing economy and ecology. We must learn to accept the fact that environmental considerations and economic growth are parts of a unified management of o…

Learning by doing

Learning by doing: doesn't that sound fantastic? Now add in learning to program by coding online, and you get a great new company called Codecademy. That's why I've decided to invest in Codecademy, which already has millions of learners who are learning to code and doing it in a fun way. Codecademy has helped connect programmers around the world with jobs, letting them find meaningful work and also continue to create. Looking forward to their global expansion and continued success. Congratulat…

The Summit of the Seas

We are on our way to Rio+20, which is being billed as the ‘Summit of the Seas’. We certainly hope this is the case, as part of my time in Brazil will be spent working as part of the OceanElders.The OceanElders have been lobbying governments behind the scenes to introduce laws to protect the oceans. Today, four of us (Ted Turner, Queen Noor, Dr Silvia Earle and myself) are going to Rio to focus on getting governments to come together to ensure the protection of our high seas. We̵…

Necker animals - Scarlet Ibis success

We are reintroducing three species to the British Virgin Islands, all of which died out there maybe 100-150 years ago. They are: the Flamingo, the Scarlet Ibis and the Roseate Spoonbill.We have had fantastic success with the flamingos, with 70 young ones born this year. The Scarlet Ibis, one of the most beautiful birds in the world, is also doing fantastically - we had our first baby born recently. This is the first Scarlet Ibis born in the British Virgin Islands for over 100 years. They are c…

The real Crimson Bandit

Yes, it turns out I was the Crimson Bandit all along. Did you guess? Congratulations to everyone who took part in our competition, it has been great fun seeing everyone work together to solve all of the puzzles around the globe. A special well done to all the winners, especially the grand prize winners for working out so many puzzles from all of our Virgin companies. Thankfully I've still got my diary and there's some more ideas in there for future campaigns. Who knows, the Crimson Bandit m…

We're half-way there!

This competition has now closed. Thanks to everyone for playing! Find out who won and discover who the real Crimson Bandit was... I just want to say a big thank you to all of you who are working so hard to track down this master criminal.  We're half-way there and i'm sure we can do it!…

Lost my diary!

This competition has now closed. Thanks to everyone for playing! Find out who won and discover who the real Crimson Bandit was... I've always enjoyed having a diary, it’s a great way to keep a record of projects and ideas I have while I’m on the move - along with memorable moments and the odd question that I want to look up later. So I was very sad when I discovered that I’d misplaced one of my diaries. I’ve been travelling a lot recently so I can’t be sure e…

Not what I was expecting

This competition has now closed. Thanks to everyone for playing! Find out who won and discover who the real Crimson Bandit was... When I appealed for help in tracking down my diary earlier this wasn’t quite the kind of response I expected! Still, we don’t like giving in to bullies, so here’s my response... UPDATE: Looks like the Crimson Bandit has risen to my challenege! Can you help me track him down? …

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