90-Year-Old to Pedal 104 Miles Down Thames for Rainforests

Most people celebrate their 90th birthday with cake and quiet reflection. Robin Hanbury-Tenison is pedaling 104 miles down the River Thames on a water-bike instead.

The founder of Survival International, who spent decades protecting tropical rainforests from the Amazon to Borneo, discovered something remarkable on his small Cornish hill farm. That scruffy piece of land turned out to be a rare fragment of Britain's nearly vanished temperate rainforest.

Now he's determined to do something about it. Starting this Friday, Hanbury-Tenison will navigate a pedal-powered craft from Oxford to Richmond, aiming to finish by International Rainforest Day on Monday.

The challenge isn't small. He'll face 31 locks, east winds, and potentially record heat. His body isn't cooperating much either with a bad knee, failing balance, and malfunctioning arms and shoulders.

His son Merlin, who will ride alongside him, describes his father like "a rickety old car going down a mountain with bits falling off it." Merlin jokes that he's bringing a stick to beat his dad when he slows down, adding, "I just hope it doesn't finish him off."

Hanbury-Tenison remains unfazed. "I'm 90 for goodness sake. Of course things begin to hurt but one pedals through the pain threshold," he said. He's been training on an exercise bike and worked out that sitting and pedaling is the one thing his body can still manage.

The goal is raising £100,000 toward building Europe's first dedicated temperate rainforest research station. The facility will sit on his Bodmin Moor farm, run by the Thousand Year Trust charity that his son manages.

The project matters deeply. Britain once had temperate rainforests covering a fifth of the country. Now less than 1% remains. While tropical rainforest research stations exist worldwide, nowhere can scientists study Britain's temperate rainforest at home.

Actor Russell Crowe believes in the mission enough to match the first £25,000 raised. "What a champion Robin is," Crowe said.

Why This Inspires

Hanbury-Tenison could easily rest on his lifetime of achievements protecting the world's tropical forests. Instead, he's channeling his final years into saving an ecosystem most people don't even know exists.

His determination shows that age doesn't have to mean stepping back. "At my age, if I'm going to do something about it, I'd better get on with it," he explained. That urgency comes from watching half the Amazon disappear during his lifetime.

The research station already has support from more than 20 university partnerships, including the universities of Exeter and Plymouth. Construction using locally sourced timber from the Woodland Trust is underway, though several hundred thousand pounds more are needed to complete it.

When offered tea stops by Thames residents along the route, Hanbury-Tenison waved them off. "As if I have time for a cup of tea," he said.

One 90-year-old man on a water-bike might seem small against the climate crisis. But he's building something that could protect and restore Britain's rarest ecosystem for the next thousand years.