We had two very special visitors on one of our BCAP courses last week. Joachim Yalang and Salape Tulai travelled 9,000 miles from their home in Papua New Guinea to spend a month in the UK as part of an exciting Para-Ecologist training project being run by Dr Alan Stewart of Sussex University.
Salepe rescuing Joachim during one of their assessed rope manoeuvres
Joachim operating the emergency rescue belay to lower Salepe to the ground
The rainforest in PNG where the lads will be using their new BCAP rope skills…
Birds of Paradise displaying in the PNG canopy
Since 2012 Alan and Sussex University have hosted trainees from PNG on an annual basis as part of their innovative Darwin initiative funded training programme and Canopy Access has been proud to provide rope training for these guys as part of this yearly training programme. The PNG students are always keen to learn, are very switched-on and are extremely tough so they tend to pick up the required rope skills pretty quickly – taking to the canopy with natural ease.
Chief instructor Waldo put them through their paces and by the time James arrived to run their assessment it was clear that they had had an extremely productive week. Both Salepe and Joachim nailed all their rope manoeuvres to pass the course with flying colours. Well done Salepe and Joachim and we look forward to visiting you guys out in PNG someday to see how you are getting on in one of the world’s most diverse and least explored environments!