Dr Franklyn Perring was a principal founder of Wildlife Travel and one of the UK's most experienced botanists. He was the 'driving force' behind our success for many years. He showed great enthusiasm for sharing his knowledge with others and supporting conservation both in the UK and worldwide. Much of his work in recent years was the training of new ecologists and conservationists, particularly botanists.

Having organised and led many holidays for Wildlife Travel, his final trip was to be to Extremadura in April 2003. Following his death a few months later, in October 2003, his legacy to Wildlife Travel is the many friends he made amongst our Travellers, fellow leaders and local guides, and the greatly-valued support he gave to conservation, including projects in South Africa, Australia, Greece, Shetland, Portugal, Tibet and Cyprus, as well as the work of The Wildlife Trusts that Wildlife Travel has managed to fund over the years.

In Franklyn's memory, we have set up a fund that Wildlife Travellers and others can contribute to. This will support a new and long-term initiative by The Wildlife Trusts, to ensure that volunteers can play an active role in conservation by training them in ecological monitoring and survey techniques and, equally important, enabling them to use these essential skills by direct participation in work that he considered vital. We hope this will encourage and enable many people to carry forward Franklyn's enthusiasm and concern for our natural heritage.

If you would like to contribute to 'Franklyn's Fund', please contact us for details.