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There used to be a joke about the definition of a World Bank expert: someone who had flown over the country in question at least twice, preferably once in daylight.

Next time you pass a florist or garden centre in the USA or Europe, stop for a moment and think where those flowers originated. All of them were once wild flowers and were transported to the ‘Western world’ over the last century or two, where they were propagated, selected, bred and multiplied so they could adorn your house or garden.

I have been hired by a coffee farmer on the edge of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in Tanzania to give advice on the endless battle between commercial farming and nature conservation. The NCA comprises the famous caldera itself plus the indigenous forest surrounding it. Sadly, I have long lost interest in the crater. In October 2001, just after 9/11, I took a client there on safari and we had the place to ourselves. Today over a million people a year visit the crater:

Chocolate has never been more expensive to buy in the UK. Readers from further afield will also notice steep rises in the price of their favourite confectionery. The increases are bigger than you imagine because chocolate manufacturers are fond of shrinkflation. That 200g bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk, the UK’s favourite, is now 180g. The sharp rise in the cost of chocolate has caught the attention of the press, but for reasons that are less to do with the fabled “cost of living

I have seen many mammals in Africa from aarvarks to zorillas but the ones that interest me the most are the ones I’ve never (or hardly ever) seen. Some of the ‘Big Five’ bore me, particularly cheetahs and lions. Cheetahs should not be on the list: they are small (around 50kg), are killed by big cats and are, apart from their speed, utterly defenceless and harmless. When surrounded, you can catch them by the tail and all they do is try and pull away from you. But they are gre