BSES Expeditions has a proud history of successful youth exploration. For over 75 years, we have worked closely with a variety of schools and other youth organisations from across the UK to provide both adventurous and educational expedition opportunities for young people from all walks of life.

In 2007 the Royal Geographical Society with IBG recognised BSES with 'The Geographical Award' at their annual award ceremony. The Geographical Award is presented for providing outstanding support for individuals or groups learning through scientific expeditions. BSES was honored for "engaging young people with scientific fieldwork through expeditions for the past 75 years". 

BSES is strengthening its commitment to youth development in a new project ('The Next Generation') that targets the kind of young people that would not normally even consider joining an expedition or have the opportunity to do so. We believe that the unique and powerful development benefits of wilderness expeditions are important for all young people, whatever their background. In 2007, we welcomed two Young Explorers from our outreach programme onto an expedition to Madagascar and we are hoping to bring on many more in the next generation…

We are committed to the personal development of young people and work in partnership with other youth organisations such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award, Queens Scout Award and the John Muir Award to encourage our Young Explorers to gain recognition and awards for taking part in a BSES expedition.

The Duke of Edinburgh's Awards		Scouts Association

BSES has been running extreme scientific research expeditions to remote wilderness areas around the world since 1932. Early expeditions collected valuable fieldwork data and brought back specimens for the Natural History Museum and the British Museum. These days we collaborate with a range of scientific research institutions from universities and world-respected scientists; to in-country NGOs and conservation organisations. Some of the organisations we currently have links with include the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), Cambridge University and the Peruvian University of Amazonian Studies.

Over the past 75 years we have:

• Protected 30,000 turtle eggs from poachers by building artificial nesting sites in the Amazon

• Measured 133 glacier snouts in the Arctic

• Recorded 13,860 blood pressures in high altitude physiology studies

• Trekked 57.6 times around the world (that's 2,303,840 km!)

• Discovered 1 new site of bushman artwork and artefacts in KwaZulu Natal, Africa
  

" Take only photographs and leave only footprints"

Having had the privilege to experience pristine wilderness environments first hand BSES are committed to ensuring that our expeditions minimise any adverse effect on the environment.

We achieve this by operating in small groups to minimise the impact on the environment; sourcing food locally wherever possible to support the local community and to reduce road and air miles, ensuring that we take all our waste with us and educating expedition members so that they gain a greater understanding of the fragile environment in which we operate and develop a caring and responsible attitude.

This commitment carries through to the office and we work hard to keep our impact as low as possible by all either cycling or using public transport to get to work, minimising paper usage and re-using or recycling all paper. In addition to these efforts that reduce our "footprint" we offset the CO₂ from all our staff travel and office activities by funding projects that absorb, reduce or avoid an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases. Whilst we acknowledge that carbon offsetting is not the ultimate solution to climate change every bit helps and we strive to be climate neutral in all our activities. Young Explorers also have the opportunity to offset the CO₂ emissions from their flights through our affiliation with Climate Care's flight emissions offsetting scheme.