We’re coming up to the end of our second week in the British Virgin Islands and have finished our entire primary scoping so now its time to begin interviews. Having spent many days walking up the steep hills and driving along the unpaved roads of our chosen communities we have completed bounding, counting and numbering houses. Chatting to people along the way, we have discovered the best bakery in the East End, where to paddleboard in Cane Garden Bay and how to get between the two in the shortest time possible.

We got to know the Islanders at the legendary full moon party at Trellis Bay, tested out the rum punch and (some of us in particular) enjoyed the Caribbean dancing style.

Today we had our second meeting with officials in the government, freezing our butts off from the extreme air-con. We have spent particular time with the Department of Conservation and Fisheries and appreciate how welcoming they have been to our work.

In the coming weeks we are going to start our household interviews, continue to find resource users and identify key stakeholders. Our first community meetings are coming up fast, Wednesday 22^nd in East End and Monday 27^th in Cane Garden Bay. It’s a very exciting time for our project in BVI and we’ll keep you up to date with everything going on.

We are back!  This time in the British Virgin Islands with a whole new team.  Please Welcome Alex Scott, Beth Taylor, Niall McLoughlin and Phoebe Mottram… photos to follow.  We are staying in a villa set for a Saudi Arabian King thanks to some very generous property owners who wanted to support the conservation work.  BVI is simply gorgeous, lush volcanic mountains and picture postcard turquoise seas and so far people have been extremely welcoming.

We are already in our third week and so far everything and anything seems to be going wrong – we’ve had a repeated dead battery on the jeep, the boat cutting out on us, clouds of mosquitos every where, a variety of injuries and illnesses as well as other logical nightmares and a cake full of maggots.  This morning I watched in horror as a hand sized scorpion scuttled out from under the data entry table… but that is field work for you!

We’ll have to catch up with the blog and I’ll get some pictures on here quickly!

Good to be back – Sarah