About The Beagle Campaign
The Royal Geographical Society has a history of mounting its own expeditions – more commonly known today as field research projects. The eighteen it organised between the mid 1950’s and 1990’s all broke even, and sometimes provided a surplus to the Society. None drew on RGS Funds. Yet, since 1998, this integral part of the Society’s anatomy has somehow been mislaid at a time of pressing need for new geographical data and discoveries.
It is no longer mountain summits or poles we seek (although countless areas still remain virgin territory), so much as a greater knowledge about climate change, forest destruction and degradation, and a host of other unknowns; our knowledge of the planet’s species still has a long way to go. For example, marine biologists estimate there are up to fifty million new species within the largely unexplored oceans, and there may be as many as ten million species of undiscovered insects, and hundreds of thousands of vascular plants, fungi and algae waiting to be discovered. As The Times leader article recently put it: “There is more urgent need than ever for RGS explorers to strive, to seek and not
to yield.”
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Having secured virtually 40% of the vote – closer to 45% before the proxy votes were included – we are hopeful that Council will take note of such an important constituency of opinion within the Fellowship. The RGS should bring together the branches of geographical science to originate its own important field research projects. We believe the Society can become an inclusive home for its uniquely able and talented members; an entity that encompasses every branch of geographical discipline and endeavour: from the traveller to the climatologist; the herpetologist to the mountaineer; the botanist to the geologist.
The Society begins a review of its research programmes in the autumn and the final recommendations ‘will be considered formally by the Society’s council, probably in spring 2010, and then published.’ Let us see if the council and the review panel will recognise the ‘significant’ number of SGM votes attained by The Beagle Campaign from its many supporters around the world.
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