High profile climate change campaigner calls into Kirkcudbright on UK tour

Sacha is circumnavigating mainland Britain on a battery powered paramotor, a giant fan and a parachute - and asking people to sign climate pledges along the way. Credit: Conservation Without Borders

UN Ambassador for the Convention on Migratory Species, Sacha Dench, has visited Dumfries & Galloway as part of a world record-breaking challenge aimed at raising awareness about the effects of climate change.

It comes as the UK is set to hold the COP-26 climate change conference in Glasgow between October 31 and November 12 this year.

However, instead of arriving in her electric paramotor, which is a bit like an electric fan with a large sheet above her, Sacha arrived in an electric van due to technical problems.

However, her enthusiasm for climate change remained undimmed and as part of her UK tour, she is hoping to set a Guinness World Record attempt by inspiring at least 140,001 people to pledge to take personal action to help tackle climate change.

Seeing her family home in Australia destroyed by wildfires is a huge part of what motivates Sacha Dench.

However, she says more subtle changes right across the rural communities of the Border region are just as important.

The 3,000-mile circumnavigation of mainland Britain will take most of the summer and by the end, Sacha hopes to have amassed the 140,001 pledges she feels she needs to do something differently.