I have seen an inch-long, fully-grown chameleon in Madagascar. I have seen a bird-of-paradise with a metre-long ribbon-tail in Papua New Guinea. In Guyana, I have been enchanted by the antics of giant river otters. In Botswana, I have showered within six feet of a huge grazing elephant. And in the Galapagos, I have snorkelled in the company of turtles, sea lions, rays and hammerhead sharks.
Marmite Bites and Noisy Nights
I could go on - to mention close encounters with cheetahs, African wild dogs, pythons, lions, hyenas and scores of other animals and birds. But I suspect that you might already have formed the opinion that I consider myself to be very fortunate and that my travels to some of the wilder parts of this world have furnished me with all the experiences I could ever need to write a whole series of books.
Well, you would be right in your opinion that I consider myself extremely fortunate. I know I am. However, even though I have indeed written a whole series of 'travel books', you would be wrong to believe that it is my encounters with natural wonders that has been the source of my inspiration. Because the real source of my inspiration is that I fear that I am amongst the last who will be able to relish such encounters. Those wilder parts of the world are shrinking by the day, and the animals and plants for whom they represent a final refuge are succumbing to our relentless onslaught - everywhere.
Now, here is the problem. You see, very few people are comfortable with this most uncomfortable of facts; that we are impoverishing our world by smothering its fauna and flora and that, unless we change our ways radically, we will soon find ourselves living in the shell of what was once a treasure-house of natural wonders. Furthermore, if one tries to ram this message down people's throats, they will either seek to ignore it or, at best, they will think themselves victims of evangelism, and will switch off completely.
So, I have been inspired to write - by what I have seen and what, in all likelihood, will not be seen by generations to come - but not to write earnest and worthy travel books, books that would probably do no more than undermine the cause of conservationism, even if any of them were ever read at all. No, instead I have ended up writing books based on my travels and my encounters with the natural world, but books that, through the use of 'poetic licence', fanciful embellishment, flights of fancy and a huge helping of humour, might just prove digestible and might therefore just convince one or two souls of the importance of our changing our ways. I should, of course, say that, in my books, I have not, by any means, jettisoned the real wildlife aspects of my travels. But these wildlife truths do have to share the pages with what I hope some people will find genuinely amusing - and irreverent and possibly even provocative.
And who knows? By taking this approach to book-writing, I might even have persuaded a handful of people to at least think about the world, and I might yet convince a couple of people to travel to the Congo and to listen to the night-time calls of forest elephants - while they still can…