Habitat Restoration
- the Untold Stories
with Tony Martin & Alastair Wilson
Free Online Event,
Wednesday 27 July starting 6pm (UK time).
Photo Credits: Left: Roland Gockel, Right: Oli Prince
Find out what it was really like running the world's largest rodent eradication project in one of the most remote and challenging environments in the world.
Project Leader, Professor Tony Martin, explains how he permanently had a knot of anxiety in his stomach for months at a time during the multi-year Habitat Restoration Project as he grappled with uncertainties such as:
Photo Credit: Oli Prince
  • Would every helicopter flight end safely, despite the appalling conditions?
  •  Would anyone working in the field snap when cooped up, inactive, for weeks, cheek-by-jowl with so many others when the weather was atrocious, as it often was?
  • Would the rat bait or helicopter fuel run out?
  • Would winter snows put a stop to their work and force them to come back and start all over again?
  • Would he recognise fresh food if he ever saw it again?
Tony describes the team who came to be affectingly known as ‘Team Rat’ as "a magnificent group of unique individuals with diverse skills and backgrounds who combined to accomplish a feat of global importance in the most challenging of conditions".
Photo Credits. Left: Ingo Arnd, Middle: Roland Gockel, Right: Tony Martin
In this free online presentation Tony will tell us about the monumental heroics of ‘Team Rat’ to make the Habitat Restoration Project a historic success. South Georgia has been free of rodents for a few years now, and now Tony has had a chance to recover, he is ready to tell us about some of the lesser known stories from behind the scenes; for instance, why was it worth the project doctor getting naked to get in a bog to retrieve a bucket?

The eradication was declared a success in 2018, so we will also be hearing from Ecologist Alastair Wilson about some of the changes to the wildlife happening on the island since the rodents have gone. And with his experiences of living in one of the few areas that were always rat-free, he will be describing how South Georgia should be in the future once all the populations have fully recovered.

Please join us for this online presentation. It should last about 1.5 hours and will also include an update from South Georgia Heritage Trust CEO Alison Neil on the current major projects being undertaken or planned by the charity and the announcement of the start of our fund-raising online auction.
Also a signed copy forms part of a special Auction Pack in our charity Auction starting on the day of the talk 27 July. See more below.












Tony Martin
(Photo Credit: Roland Gockel)

Tony Martin is Emeritus Professor of Animal Conservation at the University of Dundee.

He has spent a lifetime studying, photographing and writing about polar wildlife, specialising in whales, seals and seabirds. Tony worked for the British Antarctic Survey before, much to his Mother's dismay, giving up his steady civil service career to go and kill rats on the forbidding, magnificent sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. 

This 7-year, £8m campaign used former air ambulance helicopters to free the island of rodents. It remains the world's largest successful invasive predator eradication project and has allowed native wildlife to reclaim its ancestral home. South Georgia's recovery will see its bird population swell by tens of millions, fed by the krill-rich Southern Ocean. Tony now runs a mink eradication campaign in eastern England, advises pest eradication operations around the world, and, between polar trips, thaws out on a raft in the Amazon rainforest studying pink river dolphins.












Alastair Wilson
Alastair Wilson is an Environment / Conservation Officer and Ecologist.

He has extensive experience working on South Georgia with the British Antarctic Survey and for the South Georgia Government since 2010.

He has lived through the changes occurring on the island since rodents were eradicated, and has spent more than a year working on Bird Island, which was always rat-free.

On Bird island he was monitoring the bird populations, so knows how South Georgia should be when the bird populations are fully recovered.
Photo "Wanderer Chick" by Stacey Adlard. Available as Christmas card from our online shop.
Save the Date -
South Georgia Charity Auction
The SGHT and FOSGI online auction goes live on 27 July. The auction will run for a fortnight until 10 August.
There are more than 30 fabulous lots including an Antarctic cruise for two kindly donated by Albatros Expeditions, fabulous artworks, unique experiences, signed books, jewellery and much much more.
Watch out for more news when our auction goes live!
South Georgia Heritage Trust, 
Verdant Works, West Henderson's Wynd, Dundee, Scotland DD1 5BT United Kingdom