AS THE row rages over whether Google can send its camera cars into a street near you, so that a view of every road in the world is accessible at a key stroke, we’re reminded it’s become a very small planet.
The rather depressing idea that there are practically no unexplored earthly corners is at the centre of another dispute, this time engulfing the Royal Geographical Society. It is split by members who are either labelled “explorers” or “academics”.
The explorers claim that the academics want to push out those who are not university-linked geographers, interested in pursuing their narrow desk-bound studies.
The academics mostly use information already collected to process it for more specific conclusions.
Explorers are branded by the academic faction as the extrovert, out-going types, hungry for publicity to support their next expedition, even if it has a specious purpose.
You would think that both sides of the argument are valid. One group is needed to collect the raw material, while the other is there to arrange the findings into meaningful reports.
Yet, the image of the RGS is one that promotes expeditions to far-flung places with teams from a variety of disciplines. It is almost impossible not to think of this in anything but Victorian terms, as spirited public school males in khaki and solar topees crash through jungles, followed by native bearers staggering beneath tents and trophies.
And one feels this “Imperial legacy” fuels the problem. The schism reached boiling point last week at a special event held at the RGS in its Kensington Gore headquarters, in London.
The explorers fielded household names like Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Col John Blashford-Snell and Pen Hadow. In spite of these big-hitters, the motion calling for “a return to the major expeditions that made the society’s reputation” was defeated by 2,590 votes to 1,607 votes.
Controversy is not unknown in the exploration world. A huge row rocked the RGS exactly 150 years ago, in May, 1859.
John Hanning Speke arrived back in Britain ahead of his fellow explorer, Richard Burton, and delivered a speech to the RGS about their expedition to discover the source of the Nile.
