‘I’m 90 for goodness sake’: rainforest activist to pedal 104 miles down Thames
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- Robin Hanbury-Tenison, 90, is pedalling 104 miles down the River Thames from Oxford to Richmond on a water-bike to raise money for a unique temperate rainforest research station being built on his Cornish farm
- The journey starts Friday at Magdalen Bridge, Oxford, and aims to finish at Teddington Lock in Richmond on International Rainforest Day (Monday), navigating 31 locks, east winds and a weekend heatwave
- Hanbury-Tenison, founder of Survival International, discovered his modest Bodmin Moor farm holds a fragment of Britain's temperate rainforest — a habitat that once covered a fifth of the country and now makes up less than 1%
- His fundraiser targets £100,000 for Europe's first dedicated temperate rainforest research station, run by the Thousand Year Trust (his son Merlin's charity), which has secured more than 20 university research partnerships including Exeter and Plymouth
- Russell Crowe has pledged to match the first £25,000 raised, and Merlin Hanbury-Tenison will ride alongside his father for support down the river
- Hanbury-Tenison cited his physical decline — bad knee, failing balance, arms and shoulders that "stopped working" during a prior rowing challenge — but said he plans to "pedal through the pain threshold," training on an exercise bike
Why it matters: Hanbury-Tenison's £100,000 push fills a gap in conservation science: despite Britain losing most of its temperate rainforest, no dedicated research station exists on the continent. With Crowe's matching pledge potentially doubling the first £25,000 and 20+ university partnerships already secured, the Bodmin Moor facility could become Europe's first hub for studying a habitat that's collapsed from covering a fifth of Britain to under 1%.
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