EAST Devon’s Shute Festival continues its series of inspiring talks on 12th March at the Peek Chapel in Pound Street, Lyme Regis, with Julia Hailes, ambassador for the Rainforest Trust. She has recently returned from the Guyanas – British Guiana (as it was), Suriname and French Guiana – where the forests still stand, 83.5%, 93% and 98% intact.

But, she warns, they are teetering on the edge. Oil has been discovered. A boon or a bane? Logging, mining and burning are widespread. And there is another looming threat — Guyana is being touted as the future ‘breadbasket of the Caribbean,’ a grand plan that could see vast tracts of rainforest cleared for industrial-scale agriculture. Meanwhile, a flood of Venezuelan refugees brings even more pressure to lands already at risk.

The talk, How Rainforests have Changed My Life, is free but booking is essential to secure a place. Julia Hailes, who lives in Dorset, is a sustainability pioneer with nearly 40 years in the green sector. She is a campaigner, writer, speaker and consultant and has written or co-written, nine environmental books, including The Green Consumer Guide, which sold over one million copies worldwide, and was co-founder, with John Elkington, of the first environmental think tank and consultancy, SustainAbility in 1987, advising blue chip companies such as Procter & Gamble and M&S.

For more information visit shutefest.org.uk