When people think of hippos they tend to think of the big kind, frequently seen patrolling African rivers in natural history programmes on the TV(or perhaps the brightly coloured, rather hungry plastic variety from a well known children’s game?). What about the little guy? Who thinks about the pygmy hippo?

Unlike their larger and better known cousins, the common hippo, pygmy hippos are elusive beasties. Very little…

June has definitely been the month of the rainforest here at the RSPB. Despite not reaching any new or ambitious targets, the Rio+20 Earth Summit really got people talking about how we can meet our ever growing needs without damaging the natural environment that supports us all, and rainforests are one of the places where this struggle is most apparent. With an area the size of a football pitch being cut down every four…

Visiting Harapan is quite a trek. An overnight flight to Jakarta, the sprawling frenetic capital of Indonesia on the island of Java, via Singapore's serenely calm Changi airport, then an hour's internal flight to Jambi on the larger island of Sumatra, finishing up with a 3 hour journey by car.  The roads in places have cavernous potholes and there's always loads of traffic. The last hour of the journey is entirely…

Occasionally the camp at Harapan gets unexpected guests.  The reticulated python I mentioned in my last post was one (that’s Marco from BirdLife International above doing his best snake charmer impression), but it arrived unaided.  Another guest was brought in by some local villagers - an abandoned young wreathed hornbill. This amazing chick has been fed and cared for by the staff, and is now free flying up and…

This morning as dawn broke I woke to the sounds of gibbons 'singing'.  For me it's one of the most evocative sounds I've ever heard. They were in one of the taller 100+ ft trees a few hundred yards south of the Harapan camp. When close by the sound is almost deafening but being wary creatures they generally don't get too close to the camp. The dawn serenade was even more welcome as it was mercifully cool…

One of the undoubted enormous privileges of my job is that I do get to see some of the fantastic work that the RSPB does with its partners around the world. 

I’m currently in Harapan Rainforest, in southern Sumatra, Indonesia, and standing in the midst of perhaps around a fifth of the last remaining area of this particular type of forest.  It’s hot (around 35 degrees in the shade today), humid (feels like 100…

Last week at Rio+20, everyone from Prime Ministers to Amazonian Indians spoke of the importance of protecting tropical rainforests. The UK even announced a new initiative, aimed at capacity building in rainforest restoration.

By an unusual coincidence (and unfortunate as far as my body clock is concerned!) I now find myself heading from a conference talking about protecting rainforests to a project that's actually doing…

(Written on Saturday)

If you've seen the film by the same name, then you’ll know it’s about the catastrophic consequences of climate change, and they're depicted as spectacularly and fatally catastrophic.  As I write this, at 31000 feet over the Atlantic, the day after tomorrow for me is Monday - the first business day after Rio+20 ended.  This is the day when world leaders will get back to their day…

(Written on Friday)

The Rio conference is over. Tim and I are sitting in the tropical heat of our little flat overlooking the conference centre with the noise of the 20 diesel generators powering the vast halls coming through the door. Since yesterday’s rain, a new range of mountains has been revealed with improbably narrow needle-like peaks. We’re trying to figure out ‘what next’.

We’re not…

To tune into the live webchat on the Guardian website from 1 to 2 pm today where RSPB's Tim Stowe and Tearfund's Laura Taylor and Serguem Jessui Machado de Silva will be answering your questions on Rio+20.

Walking into the aircraft hangar-sized food hall on Wednesday morning the giant screen was relaying, live from the main Rio chamber, the speech from a Prime Minister. He was talking about the development and environmental problems of his country. When we left the conference centre last night, a strikingly similar speech was being broadcast from another Prime Minister. Coming back yesterday morning there was another similar…

The last few days have seen Tim Stowe and Sacha Cleminson updating us on what's happening from the heart of Rio+20, but now it's your chance to dig a little deeper. Between 1 and 2 pm tomorrow, the Guardian is hosting a live web chat with an expert panel from Stop Climate Chaos including Tim (live from Rio), Laura Taylor (head of public policy at Tearfund) and Serguem Jessui Machado de Silva, Tearfund country representative…

The last few days have seen Tim Stowe and Sacha Cleminson updating us on what's happening from the heart of Rio+20, but now it's your chance to dig a little deeper. Between 1 and 2 pm tomorrow, the Guardian is hosting a live web chat with an expert panel from Stop Climate Chaos including Tim (live from Rio), Laura Taylor (head of public policy at Tearfund) and Serguem Jessui Machado de Silva, Tearfund country representative…

Throughout Tuesday night and yesterday morning, police outriders' sirens could be heard regularly from the streets below our apartment and at least 3 helicopters were patrolling the skies. The Heads of State were arriving and traffic chaos ensued. 

The formal part of the Rio+20 conference was opened yesterday by Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon. In his opening remarks he stated that the text that…

Thanks to some forensic detective work by one of my admin team, we have a brilliant place to stay here in Rio.  It’s on the 11^th floor in a block of flats overlooking the conference centre, with a view to the hills behind and every morning this week the sun has risen amidst flames of reds, oranges and yellows.  There’s a dawn chorus too.  Over the noise of the generators and the traffic, southern lapwings squawk…

Since we’ve been in Rio I’ve been struggling to stop humming Copacabana (the name of a beach here), the girl from Ipanema (Ipanema, another beach) and Her name is Rio. Not sure it makes me look good in the convention centre … or in front of my boss. 

There are some fabulous hats here in the centre, particularly multicoloured wrap-around ones from West Africa and pure white felt fedoras on central Asian…

Our guides from Save Brasil and the Brazilian Nature Agency had just finished explaining the importance of the Atlantic Forests of Brazil and were ushering us towards the forest when a dazzling emerald blur whizzed in front of us.  It danced over the crimson flowers, pausing to peer between the petals, searching for nectar.  It’s not often you get to show the Secretary of State (SoS) for the Environment, the Environment…

As the sun broke the skyline behind Rio Centro - the location of the global Summit on sustainable development - several black vultures flew out across the city.  It didn’t seem like a good sign.  Sacha and I arrived at the venue, a 10 min walk from our lodgings, collected our security passes, removed various items of attire to get through the security scanners, and entered........

 ....a massive complex! We knew…

The mention of Rio to the ordinary traveller conjures up images of sun-scorched beaches, sugar loaf mountain and the iconic statue.  But, for most people working to protect nature, Rio has another meaning - the setting of the first Earth Summit and birthplace of two global conservation agreements.  It was also occasion when the world tried hard to address the issue of sustainable development - how mankind across the planet…

If you’re a regular follower of this blog, you’ll know that we’re really keen on people doing little things as part of their everyday routines to make a huge difference for rainforests. We’re always encouraging you to look for the FSC logo on paper, card and wood products to make sure they’ve been sourced sustainably and when it comes to a tasty treat, our Love Nature chocolate isn’t just scrummy, but it’s palm oil free…

It’s nine pm, I’m off to the Rio+20 earth summit in the morning and my wife, who’s a mean writer, is coaching me on blogging so I can get on and pack my bag. Just as I put ‘pen’ to paper, my French-speaking Mum calls to sort our her mystifying tax situation. The evening begins to drip away…

Will I need an umbrella for Brazil? Probably. Probably because we’ve been putting together…

At Nick Clegg’s pre Rio+20 reception yesterday, there was lot of excited anticipation about the impending earth summit. It may have already started, but things don't really kick off until next week and many in the room, including the Deputy Prime Minister and Caroline Spelman, were yet to travel.

The process of turning the summit's proposed text - the so called zero draft – into a final agreement is well underway…

The camera traps we've set up all around Harapan Rainforest allow us to see a side of the forest we would find it hard to see otherwise. The area is full of wonderful wildlife, but much of it is elusive and with Harapan covering a huge area,  keeping track of the wildlife that calls Harapan home is tricky.

The latest success we've had with the camera traps is capturing some brilliant images of our resident elephants…

In a couple of weeks time all eyes will be turning to Rio as the Earth Summit returns to Brazil twenty years after the iconic meeting of 1992. This will be the third and biggest in a series of landmark global gatherings that aims to find a balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

In the run up to the summit, over on Martin Harper's blog, we're looking at the successes and challenges of saving…

We've got camera traps set up all around Harapan Rainforest to help us find out exactly what wildlife calls this amazing place home. We've had loads of success with the cameras, even managing to capture the elusive Sumatran tiger on film. Recently, the camera traps have provided us with a new mammal to add to our growing list of species found in Harapan. We've never seen this species in Harapan before, so this is really…