This is the first of regular posts on off-beat jobs for writers around the world. This week we’ve got an opportunity that sounds like one of those unsubtle ads for MI6/CIA operatives and some car writing jobs both in the US and UK. I’d jump at the first if I didn’t have kids and I may even apply for one of those motoring posts.

Adventurous job:

Honestly, I'm a writer!

International Business Journalists wanted for Oil & Gas intelligence research. Head office in Istanbul with months abroad spent working in target countries.

What you need:

• An interest in and experience of travel
• Year-around availability
• Perfect command of written and spoken English
• Excellent presentation
• A good university degree in economics, political sciences or international relations is valued
• The applicant must be up-to-date on current events, hard working and easy to live with
• He or she must keep a cool head under pressure and be at ease with tight deadlines
• A taste for adventure is mandatory

Sound like your thing? Go here: http://t.co/DpKr2GsS 

Super car wreck

Driving Jobs

How about driving Japanese high performance cars and editing three publications all about them? UK based.

Click this: http://t.co/ABlnklj5 

Or writing for the awesome Jalopnik website. Two writer positions available, one in New York, one in either Los Angeles or Detroit. If i was a Yankee-doodler I’d be in there like a slingshot.

Click that: http://t.co/xmF8Huxq

Business Insider in the US are looking for someone to write about everything from cars to spacecraft. No brainer right?

Get your OCD on and click: http://t.co/RTqEjGsm

If you get the job, let me know so I can seethe with envy.

Live well.

Wanna be Bear Grylls, Ray Mears or Ranulph Fiennes? Then it’s time for Explore, the annual fieldwork and planning weekend at the Royal Geographical Society in London on the 18th through 20th of November.

It’s an amazing opportunity to meet those who’ve just come back from expeditions, those about to go, and those just working up the courage. You’ll find inspiration, like minds, planning sessions for your trip and opportunities to raise money, film it, talk to potential sponsors or take part in someone else’s adventure. Everything from tracking whales to discovering the 21st Century equivalent of the Galapagos islands to solo expeditions across land, ice, and sea and outreach with the remote cultures, it’s all there to be had, you’ve only get there.

For full itinerary of speakers and workshops, go here: Explore 2011.
Even better yet, join the society and receive monthly updates on expeditions you could take part in and change your life forever.

Remember to drop me a line when you do!

This year’s Explore weekend will be chaired by explorer and broadcaster Paul Rose, Vice President of the Society, who will also be on hand to provide advice.

Speaker topics include; an expedition across Iceland to study remote glaciers, environmental fieldwork in Mozambique studying giant elephant shrews, and journeying the length of the Amazon River. The full Explore 2011 programme (PDF), including speakers and topics is available to download, along with our media release (PDF).

The weekend begins with a Friday night lecture by the Atlantic Rising team – 2009’s recipients of the RGS-IBG/Land Rover ‘Go Beyond’ Bursary – who undertook a 28,000 mile journey to discover how climate change is affecting communities around the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

If you’ve got a science background and want to get hands on with the British Antarctic Survey then check out this link. http://t.co/8u0tenQE

Just a quick one today, moving home and office, more on it’s way.

Craig Wiffen will soon be on his way around the UK and he needs your support, encouragement and donations now.

It’s a challenge for any experienced kayaker, an almost impossible feat for someone with just a few months of experience. Setting off on May 27th 2011 from Fowey on the South Coast of Cornwall and travelling counter clockwise, the journey itself is some 2200 miles, taking roughly 64 days and averaging 40 miles a day, paddling non stop, across shipping lanes and through some of the fastest tidal waters in the world. Seeing some of the most beautiful coast this country has to offer – it is the expedition of a life time.

Craig will be completely unsupported, paddling through the day, wild camping at night, cooking and eating on beaches and headland as he travels around the UK.  It will be an epic undertaking of physical and mental endurance, through bad weather, exhaustion and loneliness.

You can find out more and donate by going here: http://craigwiffen.mfbiz.com

Working in conjunction with Northshore Sea Kayaks will enable Craig to have the best of the best in sea kayaks. A custom design, by Mike Nelson, Senior Kayak Designer and Workshop Manager at Northshore, the Kayak will be Craig’s lifeline in the heavy seas he will encounter.

The expedition will be filmed for a documentary as Craig pushes on to the finish line, 2200 miles away.

Godspeed Craig!

Here’s a taster of some of the work I’ve been doing with the Bedouin Heritage Project. A fantastic pilot scheme to benchmark what UNESCO classes as ‘intangible heritage’ and the cultures that are rapidly disappearing.

You can watch the videos below on NatGeoAdventure and read more about the project here. Enjoy.

The Intangibles

Part One: Survival
With the Bedouin Heritage Project we meet the Zilabia boys and the problems they face as the Bedu population leaves the desert. They take us deeper into the desert to meet tribesmen and find out how they collect water. 

Part Two: The Camel Races
A very different perspective riding alongside the controllers at break-neck speeds. Hold onto your seats!

For more info see The Bedouin Heritage Project.

Fancy a trip to Wadi Rum? Visit Jordan Tracks.

Did you know that Africa is large enough to hold the United States, China, mainland Europe, India and Japan?

This inspiring illustration from software guru, writer and designer Kai Kruse shows how and gives you the low down why.

Dear friends, do something important today, sign the AVAAZ petition:

Many whales are among the 1/3rd of all life on the planet that is being driven to extinction. World governments are meeting this week to consider a bold plan to protect 20% of the world’s oceans and lands by 2020.

We have 4 days left, and a global public outcry could tip the balance. Click to sign the petition for the 20/20 plan and forward this post:

There are only 300 northern right whales left, and 99% of blue whales have been wiped out. These majestic giants are endangered species, and their case is being played out across the world, time and again. In fact, one third of all life forms on the planet are on the brink of extinction.

The natural world is being crushed by human activity, waste and exploitation. But there is a plan to save it — a global agreement to create, fund and enforce protected areas covering 20% of our lands and seas by 2020. And right now, 193 governments are meeting in Japan to address this crisis.

We have just 4 days left in this crucial meeting. Experts say that politicians are hesitant to adopt such an ambitious goal, but that a global public outcry could tip the balance, making leaders feel the eyes of the world upon them. Click to sign the urgent 20/20 petition, and forward this post widely — the message will be delivered directly to the meeting in Japan:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/the_end_of_whales/?vl

Ironically, 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. By now, our governments were supposed to have “achieved a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss.” They have failed, consistently caving to industry when given a choice between narrow profit and protecting species. Our animals, plants, oceans, forests, soils, and rivers are choking under immense burdens from over-exploitation and other pressures.

Humans are the primary cause of this destruction. But we can turn it around — we’ve saved species from extinction before. The causes of biodiversity decline are vast, and stopping them is going to require a move away from empty piecemeal promises with no clarity on who will pay, to a bold plan with strict enforcement and serious funding. The 20/20 plan is precisely that: governments will be forced to execute strict programmes to ensure that 20% of our earth is protected by the 2020 deadline, and massively scale up funding.

It has to be now. All over the world the picture is beginning to look bleaker — there are only 3,200 tigers left in the wild, our oceans are running out of fish, and we’re losing unique food sources to large mono-plantations. Nature is resilient, but we have to give it a safe place to bounce back. That’s why this meeting is key — it’s a watershed moment to accelerate action based on clear commitments that protect nature’s capital.

If our governments feel overwhelming public pressure right now to be courageous, we can jolt them to commit to the 20/20 plan at this meeting. But it’s going to take every one of us to get that message to echo around the convention in Japan. Sign this urgent petition below, then forward it widely:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/the_end_of_whales/?vl

Already this year Avaaz, members have played a critical role in protecting elephants, defending the whale-hunting ban, and securing the world’s largest Marine Protected Area in the Chagos Islands. Our community has shown that we can set ambitious goals — and win. This campaign is the next stage in the essential battle to create the world that most of us everywhere want — where natural resources and species are valued, and our living planet is protected for future generations.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/the_end_of_whales/?vl

With hope,

Alice, Iain, Emma, Ricken, Paula, Benjamin, Mia, David, Graziela, Ben, and the rest of the Avaaz team

Sources:

The Times: “Third of all animals and plants face extinction”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7120676.ece

The Guardian: “Public awareness of the biodiversity crisis is virtually non-existent”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/16/public-awareness-biodiversity-crisis

Sydney Morning Herald: “UN calls for immediate action to save life on earth”
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/un-calls-for-immediate-action-to-save-life-on-earth-20101018-16qnv.html

IUCN: “Why is biodiversity in crisis?”
http://www.iucn.org/iyb/about/biodiversity_crisis/

More on the Convention of Biodiversity meeting
http://www.cbd.int/cop10/

Over the last few weeks readers of both my book and blog have been asking me how they can get involved in some of the adventurous activities that I like to get up to in my own life. So over the next few weeks I’ll be writing a series of short articles that give you ideas on how you can join expeditions to the ends of the earth or learn how to jump out of planes, drive cars sideways or shoot guns.

To start let’s have a quick update from this year’s Explore at the Royal Geographical Society. Did you know there are more than 90 organisations on the RGS’s books looking for volunteers or staff to join their expeditions?

To give you a prime example, the gates have just closed for gap-year students with a lust for adventure and a passion for environmental science on The British Schools Exploring Society’s Extreme Arctic expedition to Svalbard this spring.

To find out more and search the database of organisations looking for people just like you, go here.

In the next two articles I’ll be profiling some of the opportunities available and giving you ideas for two years of space exploration, driving skills and tactical firearms on British soil.