GREAT BRITAIN CHAPTER MEMBERS

In 1993 John Hare made an expedition into the desert of Mongolia with Russian scientists and in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2005 and 2006, he undertook camel surveys riding on camels to discover the status of the critically endangered wild Bactrian camel in the Xinjiang Province of China, an area of the Gobi desert which for 45 years had been China’s nuclear test site and prohibited to foreigners. In 1995/96 he became the first foreigner in recorded history to cross the Gashun Gobi from north to south and to reach the ancient Silk Road city of Lou Lan from the east. He discovered an abandoned outpost of Lou Lan called Tu-ying, previously missed by earlier explorers. He discovered graves dating back to 1500BC.

In 1997 John Hare, founded the UK registered charity The Wild Camel Protection Foundation (WCPF).

In 1999 John Hare discovered two previously unmapped valleys in the desert of Lop Nur which held a naïve population of wildlife. – animals that had never encountered man. In 2001/2002 Hare crossed the Sahara Desert from Lake Chad to Tripoli, a journey of 1500 miles which lasted three and a half months to raise awareness for the wild Bactrian camel.

In 2004 John Hare’s WCPF initiated a captive wild Bactrian camel breeding programme in Mongolia. This has been highly successful and the prestigious Zoological Society of London is now advising the Wild Camel Protection Foundation on a release programme.

In 2005 John Hare made an expedition in the Gobi desert in Mongolia and later returned to the unmapped valleys in China’s Gobi and found that the ‘naïve’ wildlife had been shot or poisoned by Chinese gold miners.

In 2006 John Hare made the first circumnavigation of Lake Turkana (660 miles) in northern Kenya with camels to raise awareness for the wild Bactrian camel.

Awards

A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers’ Club of America, in 2004 John Hare was awarded the Ness Award by the Royal Geographical Society for raising awareness on wild Bactrian camels and the Lawrence of Arabia Gold Memorial Medal for exploration under extreme hazard by the Royal Society of Asian Affairs. In October 2006 the Royal Scottish Geographical Society awarded him the Mungo Park medal for distinguished contribution to exploration.

Books

John Hare has written 42 books, many for children under the pseudonym of Dan Fulani. On his work to protect the wild Bactrian camel he has written:

The Lost Camels of Tartary, (Little Brown, 1998)
Shadows across the Sahara, (Constable and Robinson, 2002)
The Mysteries of the Gobi, (IB Tauris, 2009).

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