Photo by Louise Jasper

Alasdair Harris founded Blue Ventures, an ocean conservation enterprise supporting local fishing communities. Here, he speaks to Trudy Ross about the work they do across the globe, and the greatest challenges facing our oceans today

LUX: You have described yourself as a ‘reluctant social entrepreneur’. Can you expand on this?
Alasdair Harris: I studied zoology at University in Scotland, and was quickly hooked on marine science. I was enormously lucky to have an opportunity to study the impacts of climate change on reefs in the Indian Ocean, but was horrified by what I learned of the forecasts of ocean warming, and what that meant for the future of coral reefs. It wasn’t until I got to Madagascar − one of the poorest countries on earth − that I learned that there were also dire human implications of these unprecedented environmental changes. In particular, the impacts that climate change and overfishing were already having on the many millions of people in coastal communities that depend on the sea for their daily survival.

As a biologist I knew that the ocean is phenomenally productive, and that marine ecosystems have an amazing power to restore themselves, if we just give them the breathing space to recover. Working in Madagascar, I was struck by the overwhelming need to help communities cope with the challenges they faced from collapsing fish stocks. I saw that there was a critical need for conservation that worked for rather than against communities, harnessing the natural regenerative capacity of nature to help rebuild fisheries. But I realised that my PhD studies weren’t really going to help. So I hung up my diving fins and, with a couple of friends, I set up an organisation to try to work with coastal communities to explore ways of helping villages take practical action to rebuild their fisheries.

Photo by Garth Cripps

LUX: Can you provide some background on Blue Ventures, your goals, values, and the kinds of projects you run?
AH: Blue Ventures is a marine conservation organisation that works with coastal communities to rebuild fisheries, restore ocean life, and build lasting pathways to prosperity. We partner with traditional fishers and community-based organisations to design, scale, strengthen, and sustain fisheries management and conservation at the community level. We also bring partners together in networks to advocate for reform and share tools and best practices to support fishing communities across the globe.

Our work has helped to establish and protect vast swathes of coastal waters in Locally Managed Marine Areas, including the largest such areas in the Indian Ocean. We have also enabled fishers to boost their catches and incomes, improve their food security, and restore ocean life.

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In 2003, we started with one community in southwest Madagascar. Today, we are working across 14 countries across the tropics, protecting 17,000 km2 of vital ocean habitat and impacting the lives of more than 650,000 people.

LUX: Do you ever face resistance from locals, for whom fishing is their livelihood, when you recommend strategies which differ from their own? How do you approach this?
AH: Our approach is to work with communities to draw on the local knowledge, so that fishermen and women can come up with their own solutions to the challenges facing their seas. We can help with harnessing the power of data to enable communities to better interpret and visualise what’s going on in the water, and also by brokering learning exchanges with other communities that have piloted similar work and interventions elsewhere. We’ve helped build friendships and relationships between countless communities from dozens of countries over the years, from as far afield as Mexico and Mozambique – with community members travelling to meet others facing similar challenges.

Mangrove forest, Lambaora, south west Madagascar. Photo by Garth Cripps

LUX: What are the biggest challenges facing the fishing industry and our oceans, and what should corporations and governments be doing to combat this?
AH: The biggest challenge facing ocean fishing today is the total control and dominance of the sector by a small, and frequently highly destructive minority of predominantly unsustainable actors: so-called industrial fishing boats and companies. Conversely, the biggest group of ocean users – known as small-scale fishers – typically fishes relatively sustainably, and targets catches for local consumption and trade, supporting the livelihoods of over 100 million people, and feeding well over 1 billion.

Yet this population, which lives overwhelmingly in the so-called Global South, rarely has a voice in decisions regarding how, where, or when fishing takes place. The majority of fishing is carried out by politically powerful industrial fishing interests, which catch around one half of our seafood globally, and cause staggering damage to our oceans. The biggest proportion of this industrial catch is caught by bottom trawlers, vessels that drag weighted nets over the seabed to scrape up seafood. In some parts of the world over half of all seafood landed is caught in this way. Bottom trawling can be hugely devastating for marine ecosystems and those who rely upon them to eat and to live.

Drone shot over Barry’s Place, Atauro. Photo by Matthew Judge

LUX: Can you tell us about your work with maternal and child health, and why this is important to you?
AH: Given the lack of basic services in many remote coastal regions, in some countries we also help communities access basic healthcare through training and supporting women to serve as community health workers. We do not replace government health systems, but work to strengthen existing structures in close collaboration with government health actors and specialist NGOs. We also incubate Madagascar’s national health-environment network, which brings together 40 partner organisations to address the health needs of communities living in areas of conservation importance across the country.

Read more: Wendy Schmidt on philanthropy, technology and unexplored oceans

LUX: How can we utilise data and technology to improve the management of small-scale fisheries?
AH: Technology can play a transformative role in our mission, improving the speed, efficiency and inclusivity with which we work and communicate. From VR headsets that help communities visualise the underwater benefits of marine recovery, to satellite sensors that can track ocean warming, or monitor recovery of mangrove forests from space and provide. We’re committed to putting data and information in the hands of communities, to empowering them with the knowledge they need to rebuild fisheries.

Photo by Leah Glass

LUX: Do you believe it is possible for people to engage with marine tourism while promoting sustainable practices?
AH: Absolutely! Tourism done well can provide vital income for coastal communities worldwide, demonstrating the value of protecting the ocean. Done badly tourism can quickly undermine ecosystems, cultures and livelihoods. As tourists we have a huge role to play in being judicious in how we travel, and what practices and services we choose to support with our custom.

LUX: Finally, what advice would you give to an aspiring social entrepreneur looking to make a difference in the realm of sustainability?
AH: We’re living in an ecological emergency of unimaginable proportions and consequences. Ours is the last generation with a realistic chance of helping our species change course without causing irreparable harm to future generations and without causing catastrophic harm to most other species on our only planet. Change happens when an individual makes a decision to act. Don’t wait for someone else.

Find out more: blueventures.org

All photos courtesy of Blue Ventures

Camp Xakanaxa, on the Khwai River bank

Ella Johnson travels through Botswana on an eco-safari, where the highlight is encountering more hippos than humans – in a landscape owned by wild creatures and where humans are just fleeting visitors

Arriving at Botswana’s Makgadikgadi salt pans in the dry season feels like landing on the moon. Travel westwards by helicopter from Leroo La Tau and watch the dense African bush melt into spacescape. Step out of the aircraft onto a vast flat plain: besides the grey earth cracking underfoot, a total absence of sound predominates.

It is an extraordinary place to be on the final leg of an ultimate safari tour through northern Botswana’s Okavango Delta and beyond. A designated UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Okavango is a vital wetland region teeming with biodiverse wildlife and habitats, and is the chief stomping ground of Desert & Delta Safaris, one of Botswana’s foremost tour operators. We have been touring with Desert & Delta for the past seven days, encountering creatures and terrains of encyclopaedic variety – and now this most surprising, lunar-like landscape.

Elephant viewing from one of the EVs at Chobe Game Lodge

We had started out at Chobe Game Lodge, in the Southern African country’s northeast. It is the only permanent game lodge inside Chobe National Park (so named after the Chobe River that intersects it), and we encountered 33 elephants at the waterfront before checking in. We also get an hour’s head start over neighbouring lodges on the morning game drive: for us, the difference between a rendezvous with three lion cubs and their vanishing as other trucks piled in.

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The government’s “high-value, low volume” tourism strategy finds full expression at Chobe. The lodge, managed by locals, was the first in Africa to hire an all-female guiding team (the Chobe Angels) and the first in Botswana to electrify its safari fleet – the solar-powered boats and EVs were a game-changer when it came to proximity with the Big Five.

Chobe is as upmarket as it is eco-conscious. It is run on biogas and has its own recycling plant, where waste plastic and glass are repurposed as decking. It is also where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton celebrated honeymoon number two in 1975, and their very private suite has an infinity plunge pool. Our own room featured a roll-top bath and objets d’art from Zimbabwe, Morocco and Egypt; colours were vibrant and textures natural. Our favourite hangout was the cave-like bar, to which we headed at aperitivo hour for Amarula (Botswana’s answer to Baileys) before a meal on our private terrace.

the Honeymoon Suite patio at Chobe Game Lodge

Next came perfect isolation at our next stop, Nxamaseri Island Lodge, at the uppermost point, or Panhandle, of the Okavango. We reached it from Chobe via a short plane journey west and a boat ride through the Delta’s permanent, papyrus-lined floodwaters. The lodge occupies its own side channel, meaning we encountered more hippos than humans there. Our lodging – one of nine, connected via boardwalks through the overgrowth – was comfortable, albeit with fewer bells and whistles than Chobe. Evening meals were communal and hearty. Wi-Fi was intermittent.

The Nxamaseri region is home to around 325 of Botswana’s 500 native bird species, and we soon became adept at naming slate-coloured boubou, malachite kingfisher and Pel’s fishing owl from the comfort of our evening river cruise, G&Ts in hand. We had a more sobering experience in the mokoro, traditional wooden canoes that brought us nose to nose with crocodiles (perfectly safe, our guide testified).

We therefore welcomed the land-based trip to the Tsodilo Hills, another UNESCO World Heritage Site nearby, with cave paintings by bushmen including the San and Bantu, from 800 to 1300AD, and some reputedly far older. Although their meanings have become less intuitive over time, these paintings have been well shielded from the elements by way ofrocky overhang and ancient baobab. It is also, perhaps, the Botswana we had come to find. From our guide, Metal, we had already learnt that elephants have ten different vocalisations; that the Vogelkop bowerbird likes to decorate its nest with shiny things; that it is possible to deduce, from a pair of erratic footprints, that a guineafowl has recently met its end with a cheetah. So, too, as we studied the Tsodilo paintings more closely, rich patterns emerged.

Outdoor dining at the glass-fronted Leroo La Tau

Another short flight east across the floodwaters brought us to Camp Xakanaxa, on the banks of the Khwai River, in the arid Moremi Game Reserve. Here is a sense of drama: petrified trees dot the horizon; the fragrance of wild sage hangs heavy. Fitting, then, that our guide, TS, would race us out to catch sight of two evasive cheetahs after hours (they slinked across our path unexpectedly, our wheels kicking up dust as we screeched to a halt). Or that we’d have a close shave with Oscar, a battle-scarred hippo who loiters in Xakanaxa’s communal areas, after. Thank goodness, then, for Xakanaxa’s selection of South African reds (Saxenburg, Leopard’s Leap) to decompress after the action.

The kaleidoscope shifted again at Leroo La Tau, our final stop, in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. This is an ever-changing, aqueous environment – viewable from one of 12 glassfronted thatched suites hovering ten metres above the Boteti River, where we spent an entire afternoon watching zebras rove in their hundreds.

Read more: Ocean Fantasy: the Ritz Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands

Desert & Delta offers a salt-pan sleep-out for guests staying at Leroo for three nights or longer, but take our advice and pay upfront for a helicopter ride to beat the five-hour drive through the desert. On touching down, our personal chefs cooked a three-course meal for us on the flats; our bed was as if transposed from a Four Seasons, king-sized with crisp, white sheets – and unmediated views of the Milky Way. At roughly the size of Belgium, the Makgadikgadi salt pans are the biggest in the world: to sleep on them, tentless, was to experience darkness and solitude for the first time.

Flying back to Leroo, the moonscape slid back to more familiar bush territory. It is paradoxical, perhaps, that the highlight of our safari was a place devoid of life altogether. Yet it speaks directly to the appeal of a country whose ancient landscape continues to yield up the new and unexpected. In tapping into its extremities, Desert & Delta Safaris takes an old classic and offers a highly original take.

An otherworldly sleepout at Makgadikgadi salt pans

Getting there

We travelled to Botswana via Doha with Qatar Airways. The airline’s signature Qsuites in business class have sliding-door partitions to lose visibility of fellow passengers and bring an extra element of privacy (the partitions reach to chest height, so it’s not quite like having a full suite). On boarding we were greeted with a glass of Charles Heidsieck Rose Millesime and Diptyque amenities and an on-demand dining service with a broad choice (we went for cheese and port followed by a warming Karak Chai). More sociable passengers stopped by the Sky Bar, in its own section of the plane, for a negroni mid-flight. On our layover at Doha, we stopped in the Al Mourjan Business Lounge for sushi and more champagne. Its galactic art installation and water feature made it easy to pretend we were in a five-star hotel.

Find out more: qatarairways.com

Our hosts

Chobe Game Lodge, Nxamaseri Island Lodge, Camp Xakanaxa and Leroo La Tau are among nine Botswana safari locations owned by Desert & Delta Safaris and located within Botswana’s wildlife destinations.

Find out more: desertdelta.com

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Courtesy of Porsche

In the third part of our Super Powers series from the Spring/Summer 2023 issue, LUX’s car reviewer gets behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 Carrera GTS

The Porsche 911 is an example of a design that has succeeded precisely because it is wrong. No car designer would come up with this car now. It is neither a two-seater nor a four-seater, it has an engine where the boot usually goes and a strangely situated storage space between the front wheels. No one else has created anything like it and nor are they likely to. But this endearing design has been with us for 60 years, initially updated slowly, latterly more quickly.

The latest generation, introduced a few years back, still has the car’s distinctive design features, but is as technically sophisticated as any other luxury sports car. The newest iteration, also known as the 992, is remarkably quiet and refined when driven slowly around town – too much so for some, who say it has been overtamed in search of ever broadening markets.

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We at LUX count ourselves Porsche 911 fans, yet, while we are in awe of the technical abilities, design and performance of the standard 992, we also felt it could offer a little more in terms of engagement and excitement. So we were pleased to be given the keys to this GTS model. Porsche typically produces some race-oriented 911 versions for enthusiasts, but they have certain compromises, including a lack of back seats and a handling set up that, while suitable for a smooth race track, is not ideal if you live in the actual world, as you find yourself rattling over potholes and scraping over bumps.

The GTS is a halfway house between the two. It is the 911 you buy if you drive every day but crave a little edge. As such, it is really a tweak of mainstream 911 models rather than anything spectacular, but Porsche engineering means the GTS models feel more special than they should.

The Porsche 911 Carrera GTS adds a frisson of extra excitement to an already practically perfect and endearingly distinctive supercar

First impressions were of a car that is a little more tuned and willing than the standard model. Everything is incremental: the engine sounds racier and is keener to engage; the steering is more lively. When we took our first roundabout, we felt the car spoke to us in a way standard models do not. On fast country roads,
the differences amplified. Our car had manual transmission – Porsche’s automatic gearshift is smooth and easy to use, but, for engagement, we like a manual when we can find one. Infamously, Ferrari has stopped making them, so raising the values of its last manual-transmission models.

With this and the other GTS enhancements, this car is a joy along country lanes. Acceleration is immediate and rapid: turn the steering wheel a fraction and it responds a fraction; exit speedily from a corner and you feel the back of the car tighten, which lovers of all 911s will appreciate. The GTS feels like a standard 911 that has taken a Chenot detox alongside Pilates and musclebuilding, like a friend who has been working on their fitness. We found it even more fun than the faster and more expensive 911 Turbo, which is a hoot for its “Look how fast we are going!” value, but less precise and delicate than this.

Read more: Lamborghini Huracán STO Review

So, the perfect Porsche? At everyday speeds, you won’t let out a rebel yell, as you might in some of its less sophisticated but popular competitors. And you will not love the manual transmission in town – always a compromise. But for adding an edge of excitement to an already beautiful, competent and desirable car, the GTS is as good as it could be. Get yours with rear-wheel drive, a manual gearbox and Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres for a car true to the spirit of the model.

LUX Rating: 18.5/20

Find out more: porsche.com

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX