Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is truly such a wonderful country. It is so diverse and bursting with culture, not surprising given the diversity of its population.

Yangon (Rangoon) the old capital, with nearly 7 million people, is bustling with markets and places to eat beautiful food. The people are colourful, happy and keen to engage with you and I only hope it stays this way as tourism increases. 

As we headed south, it became clear that there was a very simple reason for why there is so much rice in their diet, they grow a hell of a lot of it! The landscape is flat for miles and miles, hours and hours, with nothing but rice fields and little wooden houses on stilts.

Occasionally, one of these little wooden houses would have a pig in it, or a slightly larger one would be farming chickens.

Sometimes we would see people taking the pigs for a walk or a bunch of ducks or chickens strapped to the back of a moped zooming past. Beautiful pots surround each house collecting rainwater for washing and drinking, and the odd banana tree and coconut tree provides shade for the many dogs that roam freely across the land.

In 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar causing the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of the country. Over 100,000 people died, rice fields were flooded with salt water and the recovery was slow.

Today, 10 years later, there is still evidence of this disaster. Fallen temples lay as ruins and beach resorts, once hoped to bring tourists and a growing economy to the region, now lay derelict as the beaches are nothing but tidal mud flats. 

These people are resilient, they have new homes, schools, hospitals, crops, and fishing boats but it is far too easy to imagine a natural disaster ruining it all again. The land is just so flat and the roads are so poor.

It would be very difficult to evacuate this area and the infrastructure is delicate. The area is an important rice production basin for much of Myanmar, therefore, affecting millions of people. The increasing intensity of storms predicted by climate change scientists means it is only a matter of time before these beautiful people have to suffer and rebuild all over again.

I have been lucky enough to have been involved in one very specific project in this area - the establishment of mangroves. 

Increasing mangrove planting around the coastal regions will help reduce the impact of storms and at the same time provides a new habitat that can be a source of food (crab) and therefore also income for local communities. 

Improving the local economy can help support communities to build a better infrastructure that will help defend against the impact of weather, natural disasters and climate change. 

It has been an absolute pleasure to visit Myanmar and to help with such an important project, I do hope that one day I can revisit.

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