Saturday November 21, 2009

Endeavouring to bring change

Stories by RUBEN SARIO

Intrepid adventurer, South African Mike Horn, believes the young will undo the follies of our polluting ways.

I’m just a normal guy with a passion that drives me to do things,” that’s how South African Mike Horn, 43, describes himself.

But what sets Horn apart from other “normal guys” is that his passion takes him to some of the remotest regions in the planet.

Mike Horn arriving at Chodurdakh, the first village he’s seen in two months.

He has traversed South America, where he followed the entire 6,575km length of the Amazon River from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

He also trekked across Africa and, together with fellow explorer Borge Ousland, became the first men to travel without dog or motorised transport to the North Pole in the permanent darkness of the Arctic winter for 60 days in 2006.

And then there was Horn’s 40,000km circumnavigation of the equator on foot, bicycle, boat and canoe.

This was followed by the circumnavigation of the Arctic Circle on boat, kayak, ski kite and foot.

Since 2008, however, Horn has embarked on a new type of adventure — one that sees him sharing his adventures with a group of international youths as part of his Young Explorers Programme.

In late October, Horn and nine youths from seven countries sailed to Sabah on board his yacht Pangaea to explore the islands off Sabah’s east coast, including the renowned diving haven of Pulau Sipadan and Lankayan.

The group also toured Borneo’s northern tip of Tanjung Simpang Mengayau in Kudat district before making a brief stopover in Kota Kinabalu on Nov 5 to meet up with state Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun.

Mike Horn

In a quick interview after meeting Masidi, Horn said that the adventures he had embarked on so far was not to court danger but rather to improve and enrich himself through the experiences gained. He recalled how his first aborted trek to the North Pole ended with frostbite and saw a finger tip amputated.

“I learn from mistakes, and I use the knowledge to succeed. I succeed after I fail. I failed in that first summer trek to the pole but I succeeded in the second attempt to reach the North Pole in the worst of winter conditions.

“Life itself is a challenge but if you better yourself, you can overcome your challenges. If you can pitch a tent amid 160km winds, then it puts you in the frame of mind that you can achieve anything when you set your mind to it,” said Horn, who was accompanied on the trip by his wife Cathy.

The couple, based in Switzerland, have two daughters Anika, 16 and Jessica, 15.

“I don’t seek danger when I go out there. The purpose of an expedition is to go out there and come back safely and to share what I’ve been through. And the way to do so is to be well prepared,” said Horn.

The Young Explorers Programme is a continuation of his explorations, which at the same time allows him to show young people the world they are inheriting and how it would be up to them to reverse the damage done to the planet.

“My hope is that if you show youths how beautiful and vulnerable Earth is, they will grow up to become its custodians. We are all children of the Earth, and we need to be fighting not for our countries but for our world,” Horn said.

The exploration of Sabah’s east coast islands was an eye-opening experience for Horn and the nine youths as to nature’s beauty and the ugly aspect of human behaviour — there was quite a bit of litter lining the beautiful beaches. Such was the amount of rubbish they encountered that Horn and his team of volunteers set about cleaning them up.

They collected some 5,000 plastic bottles and containers on the remote islands of Pulau Mantanani and Pulau Sebaung in just a few days.

People are continuing to take the environment for granted, Horn observed. He recalled his shock during his North Pole expedition upon seeing polar bears roaming in an area more northerly than was their habit. And Horn also remembered vividly how the ice was melting so rapidly that the South African flag he planted on the pole kept moving.

To him, these are all real symptoms of climate change and global warming. And yet, Horn does not despair but rather pins his hope on today’s youths some day taking action to heal the environment. And he wants to do his part through the Young Explorers Programme.

“We want to bring a message of hope, not of despair. I think we have been bombarded long enough with negative messages about the world. That’s why we focus on the beauty of these places. Once we can conserve the beauty we have, then we can work to clean the human footprint.

“You can’t change these things in a day, but you can change them through education and getting local communities involved,” he explained.

Horn’s thirst for exploration began with a curiosity about the natural world around him and how things worked. He recalled with a laugh how his mother used to tell him that as a child he kept pestering her with questions like why clouds move, why plants have different leaves and where the sun goes to sleep.

“I was curious about nature and not things like why cars have an engine, like other children,” he said.

Growing up in Johannesburg, Horn spent a lot of time outside, climbing trees, exploring the neighbourhood and the Kruger National Park where his family spent some of their holidays. When he was eight, his parents presented him with a bicycle, and this enabled him to widen his area of exploration. This continued until his graduation from South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, where he studied the science of human movement.

Horn then moved to Switzerland where he became an instructor for a company offering extreme activities like abseiling, hydrospeed (river boarding), canyoning and rafting. His first adventure saw him descending the Mont Blanc glacier on hydrospeed, finishing at the French Riviera.

Looking back, Horn is thankful that his parents were so supportive of his interests in extreme activities.

“My family gave me roots — to be proud of where I was born and grew up, and they gave me wings, the freedom to explore myself, my country and eventually the world,” he said.

Horn’s father, a South African rugby player, was an inspiration to him.

“He was well respected, and as a kid, I was so proud of him. I realised at a young age that if you do something right and well, that if you keep your line, people will respect and help you,” he said.

Looking beyond 2012 when his Young Explorers Programme is scheduled to end, Horn is turning his sights on mankind’s last frontier — space.

“I think space is something interesting. But I still have a lot to learn. To me everything is possible. People say it’s impossible to walk around the world on the equator. I say for you it would be impossible because you don’t really want to do it. But for me, that’s something I wanted to do, and I tried and made it possible.

“People limit themselves through their minds. That is the biggest limitation. It’s the barrier we set for ourselves,” said Horn.

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