2011 – 361,690 KM (224,744 miles) travelled

We met and spoke to a lot of people in 2011 and managed to travel the equivalent distance of fifteen trips around the world, or a one way ticket to the moon!

This might not be much compared to many businesses these days, but bear in mind that this total was achieved by less than ten people. This year Darren comes in as the clear winner at a staggering 193,276 KM (120,000 miles) in economy – but as the shortest in the team he doesn’t need much leg-room.

These trips have been really productive as our message spreads and more and more people recognise the tremendous possibilities of genetics for protecting ecosystems, empowering indigenous people and securing timber supply chains from laundered and illegally felled trees.

We have helped increase the budget for a genetic map of forests across seven counties in the Congo Basin by $1 million to a total of $3 million. This is going to significantly change the way forest resources are managed in these countries and provide access to European and US markets with DNA based Chain-of-Custody.

Business has also started to experiment with Genetic Checkpoints in their supply chains. We are now developing pilot approaches for a number of large importers to secure complex and at-risk lines of supply.

The International Year of the Forests really didn’t disappoint and next year will see significant breakthroughs in the technology making it even cheaper and far more accessible.