Dr Jeff Neilson (http://www.geosci.usyd.edu.au/people/st_neilson.shtml), a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, Australia, will be leading a team which plans to visit a selection of Wallace's important collecting sites in Malaysia, Borneo, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Maluku and New Guinea over the next few months for 5 weeks at a time. The aims of the expeditions are: i) to understand the ongoing environmental change taking place at each site; ii) comment on the conservation status of flagship ‘Wallace species’ in the region; and iii) find out how Wallace is being remembered by communities at each key collecting site.
I am very pleased to report that Jeff has agreed to post reports from the field on a blog which we have set up for him on this website. To see it CLICK HERE. Jeff's first visit was to Mt. Ophir in Malaysia – a place where Wallace and Charles Allen collected many interesting animals and unusual ferns. Unfortunately, Jeff is currently ill. He wrote to me two days ago:- "I've come down with a fever in Singapore and have had to cancel the trip to Muara Dua / Lobo Raman in Sumatra, which is very disapointing. My next 'Wallace' trip will now be to Menado / Ternate / Halmahera at the end of September (did you hear there was a major earthquake north of Ternate yesterday morning?)." We hpe you get better very soon Jeff.
Talking of blogs, we have also set one up for artist Fred Edwards, so that he can post back reports about his expedition to Brazil next month (to see it CLICK HERE). Fred is due to leave for Manaus, Brazil on the 7th October, returning to the UK on the 15th January 2009. Whilst there he will be overseeing several exhibitions of his artistic photographs of Wallace's fish and palm drawings from the Amazon. The first exhibition will be in October at the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) in Manaus. The exhibition will then go on tour to other Brazilian institutions. Whilst in Brazil, Fred plans to travel down the Rio Negro as Wallace did. He will be taking photographs and making video and sound recordings for use in Wallace exhibitions in the UK next year (including, hopefully, a big exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London towards the end of 2009).
And finally...
Famous UK comedian Bill Bailey is currently on tour in Australia (http://www.billbailey.co.uk/fasthtml/tour.php) and has been talking about his plans to produce a TV programme (or series of programmes) about Wallace's travels and work in the Malay Archipelago - see http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/09/11/1220857741654.html and http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/entertainment/how-bill-got-his-groove/2008/09/06/1220725821658.html
Bill said "I'm working on a film project about the explorer and naturalist Alfred Wallace. He co-presented the papers on natural selection with Charles Darwin but has been airbrushed out of history.
There are lots of people who are passionate devotees of Wallace and I feel a real affinity with him. He was always an oddball and an outsider but was also a great adventurer. I've travelled in his footsteps around Indonesia and he got into some terrible scrapes. The film will be part travelogue, part documentary. It will be serious but there'll be some funny moments."
Keep up the good work Bill!
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