Towards the middle of August Paul and Simon were making plans for an entirely different venture. We headed out to Borneo to raise an entirely new group of anti-poaching rangers to protect the last remaining pockets of tropical forest. These threatened wildlife refuges still harbour elephant, orangutans, clouded leopard and sun bears, to name but a few of the iconic species unique to the island. Sadly, the last remaining rhino died recently despite efforts to breed them
We had to dig deep in our storage boxes for old jungle kit, or buy new and we both travelled out with excess baggage to pay.
Over 10 weeks we put 19 candidates through their paces to select a final 15, plus we trained and assessed two new but contracted commanders who planned to lead the new Quick Reaction Teams.
Paul and Simon were ideally suited to the mix of law enforcement and jungle patrolling training with a 10-day Level 2 tracking qualification thrown in. With some mountainous forest to navigate and no gridded maps we made our own along with plotting romers which enabled us to teach a high level of map and compass navigation to compliment their GPS’s and electronic maps.
We were very proud of the hard work and achievements of the successful candidates and hope to monitor their progress as they’re unleashed into the forests to pursue illegal hunters and poachers.
