Sacha Dench is a conservationist with a passion for storytelling. Nicknamed ‘The Human Swan’, her previous expeditions include flying – without the assistance of an airplane – across the Arctic, Russia, and Europe to follow the migration pattern of an endangered species of swan. This summer she’s attempting another record-breaking journey. All in the name of fighting climate change.
The Round Britain Climate Challenge
This summer, Sacha is attempting a journey that’s never been completed by a human. She aims to circumnavigate Britain from the sky, in a journey that will follow the mainland’s coastline over 3000 miles.
Her vehicle of choice is a paramotor – which is basically a paraglider with an engine. As well as being powered by the wind, paramotors have a throttle. This lends greater control over ascending and descending in the air, meaning paramotors can take off and land almost anywhere.https://www.youtube.com/embed/bN70Z8yVqFM?controls=1&rel=0&playsinline=0&modestbranding=0&autoplay=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cactus-energy.com&widgetid=1
Sacha will be supported by a ground team of scientific experts and professional content creators from Conservation Without Borders, an organization Sacha herself founded.
An Eco-Friendly Twist
The aim of the Round Britain Climate Challenge is to rally ambition and enthusiasm around reducing our nation’s carbon footprint. Sacha and her team want to spark conversation about ‘how far we can go without fossil fuels. Therefore, the paramotor Sacha will be flying is specially adapted to be powered by green electricity.
Sacha will need to come back down to earth at various points along her journey in order to rest and re-charge (literally, re-charge her paramotor). When on land, she’ll be sleeping in tents and her ground team will be traveling via electric vehicles.
The People on the Ground
Photo credit: herefordtimes.com
These scheduled stopovers will also be used as an opportunity to meet climate heroes from across the country. Sacha and her team will interview residents and local businesses pushing for sustainable changes in areas such as agriculture, industry, community projects, and conservation.
The key question is: “If Britain drove the Industrial Revolution that kicked off large-scale burning of fossil fuels, can we drive the Green Revolution too?”. It is hoped that these interesting and inspirational insights on how climate change is affecting the country and what solutions are available to deal with it, will capture the imaginations of people across locations and generations and encourage everyone to get involved in reducing the nation’s carbon footprint.
“Climate change has to be seen as a mountain we can climb, not a dark cloud on the horizon too big to think about.” – Sacha Dench
The expedition and interviews will be shared via live video updates from the ground, air, and even underwater! A compilation of the stories will be presented at COP26 in Glasgow in November. It is hoped this will encourage policy-makers to consider the voices of the people and take real action to protect the future of this planet and everyone that lives on it.
The journey has already started – watch the live map to stay up to date!
Can We Count You In?
The journey itself will be a global first is completed. But there’s also another world record being attempted. And this is one you can be a part of.
The Round Britain Climate Challenge is calling on as many people as possible to join the ‘Count Us In’ climate initiative – a global network of people totaling up the impact of their individual sustainable actions.
If 140,000 people sign up from 18th June to 17th July, everyone involved will have helped to set a new record for the most people pledging climate action in one month (and be able to download their own Guinness World Record Certificate to prove it).
‘Count Us In’ focuses on just 16 simple yet impactful steps that people can take to reduce their carbon footprint. Going solar is one of them – you can read what they have to say about it here and check out our solar FAQs for more info.