Liz Laidler, like Benjamin Bynoe, is a childof Barbados. Her mother was a Bynoe, a familythat laid its roots on the island in 1667. Mirroringher ancestor, she emigrated to England totake advantage of its wonderful educationalinstitutions. The dates are, of course, somewhatdifferent, 150 years apart, in fact - Benjamin in1820 and Liz in 1970 - but the fact is, they bothcherished their adopted country, the UnitedKingdom, while at the same time retaining adecidedly soft spot for their island home.During her zoology degrees at DurhamUniversity, Liz co-led two Durham University expeditions to St. Vincent in theCaribbean in order to assess the status of the endangered St. Vincent Parrotand the equally vulnerable Soufrière Tree. She afterwards did a Ph.D. on giantotters in Guyana, at Cambridge University.Wildlife filming then drew her into the world of pandas in China, pangolinsand monkeys in Ghana, and giant otters in Guyana. With her husband, KeithLaidler, she co-produced many wildlife documentaries which were broadcast onBBC, Survival Anglia, WNET, and National Geographic. Their first film wasthe award-winning Pandas Aren't Always Cuddly (BBC Wildlife on One, narratedby David Attenborough). Their most memorable, however, was a pilot filmwhich never saw the light of day on television - A Tale of Two Villages. Lying tothe north of Kumasi in Ghana, these two villages of generous, warm-heartedpeople stood out from other settlements in that their precious, life-sustainingforests and streams were intact, the secret being religion - specifically, a longheldbelief in the divinity of their monkey inhabitants.As principal organiser of China's first international wildlife conference- International Conference on Wildlife Conservation in China '87 - Liz headed theOverseas Section of the Scientific Committee.Liz is the author of Otters in Britain (David & Charles), and co-author ofThe River Wolf (Allen & Unwin), Pandas (BBC), and China's Threatened Wildlife(Blanford). She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.Liz lives with her husband on an organic smallholding in County Durham.They have planted woods, created meadows, and dug ponds, all buzzing andsplashing with wildlife. They fight a never-ending battle with rabbits whichwould happily destroy the barks of young trees and lay waste to vegetableswere it not for fences and protective collars. Needless to say, rabbit stew is aregular item on the Laidler menu.