Why just climb Mt Everest when you could climb Mt Everest AND survey the resident Bar-headed Geese population? Why rappel down K-2 when you could rappel down K-2 AND take a bunch of extreme microbe samples?

These are the sorts of questions posed by Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, a project that teams the derring-do of the global adventure community with the need of ecologically-minded scientists to investigate hard-to-reach places. And who better to go there than those hardy souls whose idea of a good time is to be five days into the Amazon Basin with nothing but a few muesli bars, their thoughts and a brewing case of dysentery to keep them company?

The projects are typically low-impact and require only marginal efforts from the adventurers in question, but it's also a great way for explorers to give back to the natural world they draw so much joy from.