Wilhelm

I am an enthusiast when it comes to, traveling, nature, conservation – thats why I got this page. Biotrotter. For me, conservation is in many ways humanitarian work.

I come from Sweden where I lived in a suburb to Stockholm. My family always used to travel so I guess thats where I got my intrest from. After school I said – “I’m gonna bike to China”…which I’m still saying. Instead I did alot of other things.

My interest for animals and nature has always been my guidance in life. Where ever I choose to travel, or whatever I day dream about – its always depends on the local animals. For example: My dream is to go to the Democratic republic of Congo. Why? … Its only to see the Okapi…the most beautiful creature in this world. I’d like to go to Nepal for the snow leopards, eastern russia for the tigers and South america for the pink fairy armadillo. Oh I forgot Iran, since I’d like to see their cheetahs!

I went to Africa and Tanzania for the first time when I was 19, and caught malaria after one week on my 20th birthday. However, when I got cured I really enjoyed my time there volunteering on an orphanage. I was only working as a volunteer for about 8 weeks until my feet was itching and I decided to travel around. So I went to Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. And as usual I planned it all depending on which animal I’d like to see. Rwanda – gorilla. Uganda – Chimps, Kenya – the bongo antelope (which totally failed).

I guess my point is: Im a nature freak who likes to see the rarest stuff. But I also care about conservation and about the environment which is the keystone why this blog is created. The unwillingness save pristine rainforest is for me unbelievable.

What I like to work for, is to make people see how big profit humans get both in ways of the  economics and our souls.  We need this!! We need the services the ecosystem provides us, and I dont want us to lose.

So I went to university to study biology, then back to Africa, this time with my friend to write about the conservation done which is done all over the continent, on species most people haven’t even heard of! We did that for 5 months and called it “Biotrotter”.

The aim of the Biotrotter project was to make Swedish youngsters more interested in conservation work. During this time I learned a lot about how conservation work differs from locations and how different organizations work. Also I learnt a lot about key species in the countries we visited, knowledge ranging from why selective predators are important such as wild dogs, to how elephants have totally different environmental impact depending on their habitat.

The project Biotrotter was not something that was offered to us. It was our own idea and required a lot of hard work planning and to get in touch with all the researchers around in southern and eastern Africa. Afterwards I’ve given lectures in the university as well as for high school classes about our experiences and what we learnt from researchers.

The reasons why to share information about endangered species are many. As the habitat for most of the animal species in the world heavily decreases, every chance of stopping or preventing this mass destruction is to be taken. However, I also want to inspire anyone no matter what you think is important or what you believe in. I welcome any discussion about environmental issues and I look forward to get feedback if you would like to share it with me!

Now I am on Borneo conducting research on the orangutans!