Ganges
DISCOVER
Asia
Andy Leemann
My remarks as the expedition leader
Indian Expedition crew: Apal, Monu, Nishant, Mirza, Shailendra, and Zorba, this boys are unbelievable, well educated, nice, hard workers and never complaining about work or unhappiness. I took them in my heart and will keep them there for the rest of my life.
The Ganges is an incredible river and the trip was much but very much over my expectations, when looking at nature, beauty and people. The Ganges river is not death but it is seriously sick. The water-shearing is a subject which one day will hopefully be understood and we folks start to realize that these rivers have been our river roads for the last thousands of years and we should respect them as such.
We should not forget the people living on this rivers either!
Dear partners and friends
After spending almost 2 months in India, the crew of the Ganges Expedition has arrived back home safely this week. There are a lot of things for us to do now and a lot of issues to follow up in order to bring this unprecedented project to a good end, but first of all we would like to thank you once again for your support.
Having Kuoni, WWF, Green Cross International and ABI as a partners was just great and very professional. Thanks for your confidence in us, and your participation at a early planning stage, that enabled us to go ahead. Without you lending the hand we needed, the expedition would neither have been possible nor successful. Thank you very much.
And yes, it was a successful venture, despite many challenges and difficulties. For more than one months, the Ganges river, lifeline of Indian culture, has been the setting of a beautiful project. By travelling 2,500 kilometres from the source to the delta, we have been able to showcase successes and highlight challenges associated with the Ganges river.
Journalists from around the world have travelled with us, being able to document the situation. Some press reports can be seen on the website www.ribexpedition.com, together with image galleries and lots of „pictures of the day“. We will compile a documentation of the coverage and we can share it with you.
We will be in touch with you over the next weeks to provide you with the promised photo material on the project, which you can use for press releases, your web site, or publications. Please do not hesitate to contact us for any specific request.
Thank you again for your support and for helping to turn the Ganges, lifeline of India, into a “Ganga Ma”.
Best regards.
Andy Leemann, Apal Singh and the entire Ganges Expedition crew
