Why is it so important what you're doing and your connection with the Desert Vipers?

In terms of what Naturewave does, where we try to simply connect people more with the natural world, a lot of that is based on the research by Professor Myles Richardson, who designed the biodiversity stripes on our match shirt, which is just behind me, showing the decline in biodiversity since the 1970s.

And that's a real problem.

When we, when we sit back and think about it, there are fantastic sustainability initiatives the Vipers are involved with, a lot of organizations in the UAE and around the world are involved with.

But from my point of view and everything we believe at Naturewave, if we don't encourage people to notice nature, to spend time outdoors, to enjoy the natural world, and ultimately love nature and care for it, they're not going to protect it.

They're not gonna do all these sustainability initiatives, whether that is not using a plastic bottle, or whether it's installing solar panels further down in somebody's life, or perhaps we're able to change behaviors in terms of people who get into powerful positions in the future.

And so combining that with cricket is fundamentally important for two reasons.

Wondering, Alan, how have you found working with the Desert Vipers? How long, for example, has this partnership been going on then?

You know, the amount of wet playgrounds and, and wet lunch times you have in the UK and all these sorts of things is, if you are a, a school that is stuck geographically with where you are, how can this really help to enlighten and enhance if they can't necessarily get outside?

Absolutely.

Well, there, there are two sides to a citizen science platform such as iNaturalist, in that you can go recording wildlife outdoors, or you can actually help to verify, identify, and just learn about the records coming in.

You can just google iNaturalist and have a look.

There's a children's version of their app called Seek, which is brilliant.

There are sort of badges and, and points integrated into that.

And, and another thing I'm a huge fan of is also trying to give young people agency and leadership and ownership opportunities of their local wildlife, and that can be as simple as create your own wildlife bingo game and try and get other people around you connected to nature.

How, how are you kind of envisaging or how would you support people to kind of make those first steps? What do you see this doing?

You know, the amount of wet playgrounds and, and wet lunch times you have in the UK, and all these sorts of things is, if you are a, a school that is stuck geographically with where you are, how can this really help to enlighten and enhance if they can't necessarily get outside?

Absolutely.

Well, there, there are two sides to a citizen science platform such as iNaturalist, in that you can go recording wildlife outdoors, or you can actually help to verify, identify, and just learn about the records coming in.

You can just Google iNaturalist and have a look.

There's a children's version of their app called Seek, which is brilliant.

There are sort of badges and, and points integrated into that.

And, and another thing I'm a huge fan of is also trying to give young people agency and leadership and ownership opportunities of their local wildlife, and that can be as simple as create your own wildlife bingo game and try and get other people around you connected to nature.

How, how are you kind of envisaging or how would you support people to kind of make those first steps? What do you see this doing?