Rhubarb 2021

The desert trucks froze at night despite having stoves in them

Trashigang masked dancers – Bhutan

INTERVIEW

“Through our film work we set out to bring stories from the front line of climate change into people’s front rooms”.

The biggest thrills are when we safely pull off ambitious projects that involve employing lots of Mongolians, often in extreme weather conditions and challenging terrains.When we worked with fellow OSE John Hare on a wild camel story for A Perfect Planet, the temperatures were minus 30 degrees Celsius at night. The Giant Desert Campervans still froze despite the stoves in them! What has the journey been like, since starting your company? Panoramic Journeys was our baby before we had kids! We have experienced the highs and lows of essentially having three children.We grew slowly, adding Bhutan and then Myanmar to our offerings. Despite sleepless nights, we and our teams have managed to pull off, most of the time, what we call our “Triple Win” – benefiting not only our guests, but all those involved in the journeys and the wider world. How has Covid affected your work? We felt very sad to have had to make some redundancies. However, the most painful part of this period has been the crisis in Myanmar.The impact of Covid has been compounded by the horrific military coup that the country is suffering – not to mention the impact of climate change. Although Covid has halted travel to our destinations, we have managed to host a few film shoots with local crews which has enabled us to financially support some of our friends in Myanmar .

How has the climate emergency impacted what you do? Since witnessing scary scars in the Mongolian Steppe where the permafrost is thawing, scaling up climate action has become our focus.Through our film work we set out to bring stories from the front line of climate change into people’s front rooms. I am now working as an Impact Producer which involves enabling audiences to know what they can do to make a difference. David Attenborough has said ‘No one will protect what they don't care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced’. Taking this on board and recognising that over a tenth of the world population is dependent on tourism, we are attempting to play a role in sparking the changes in the sector that are needed for us to achieve Net Zero. One way we are doing this is by launching a new form of sabbatical that involves the Trans-Mongolian.We will fill a train carriage with change makers from across disciplines and challenge them to come up with ways that they can collaborate to accelerate the changes that humanity needs to undertake. Do you have a motto for life? “THINK GLOBAL – ACT LOCAL” and also Carpe diem – nothing is permanent – so make the most of now!

www.panoramicjourneys.com @ panoramicjourneys

Think Global – Act Local

Melting permafrost in Mongolia

Follow @ showsupportformyanmar

20