This vote that Mum and Dad – Janine and Nicholas Courtney, joint founders of the Courtney Conservation Foundation, to give them the names by which they wield such influence among environmental campaigners – were hoping to help get passed, was the latest in a long line of interventions staged by the Foundation. Since they took early retirement from their finance jobs in the City, eco-activism through the Foundation has been their thing. It’s a pretty generous way to spend their time and money, I suppose, but if I’m honest, although I completely back the whole save-the-planet thing, I can’t get quite as excited about it as they do. Which was why Mum had insisted I come along on this trip. While they would be lobbying business leaders, government officials and ministers in the capital, Kinshasa, Amelia and I were set to go on safari in one of the country’s national parks, to check out the natural wonders Mum and Dad were here to protect. Though she hadn’t spelled it out, I knew Mum was hoping that once I saw first-hand what was threatened, I’d be more keen to do my bit to help. And maybe I would. I was certainly up for seeing some gorillas. Either way, the gorillas’ habitat, and the big vote about whether to protect it or sell it off to mining companies, was the reason we were now coming in to land at the wrong airport somewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For ages there’d been nothing but trees visible below the plane. As Amelia pointed out, I was looking at the second largest rainforest in the world, after the Amazon, in a country roughly the size of western Europe, slap bang in central Africa. I couldn’t help thinking that if the gorillas weren’t able to sort themselves out down there the Courtney Foundation would have its work cut out to help them, but I didn’t say that to Mum, obviously. I’m not a total idiot. Instead I listened as Amelia, who – true to form – had done her research, gave a mini lecture on the ‘endemic corruption’ the citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo have to put up with.

‘It’s rife,’ she said, ‘as in quite possibly the most corrupt country on earth. There’s more mineral wealth in the ground here than just about anywhere else, and yet the people are among the world’s poorest. Even those who do the digging for the gold, cobalt and tantalum – which is used in mobile phones – barely see any of what it’s worth. Foreign companies from China and the West bribe corrupt officials, buy up what’s dug out for a pittance, sell it overseas and pocket the profit. Unless the government steps up properly – which is what the vote your folks are here to influence is all about – the country will have lost ninety-five per cent of its rainforest within the next eight years. Add in the militia, who’ve turned much of the country into a war zone, and the deforestation for charcoal, and the threat to wildlife from poachers …’