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In an innovative paper published today in the journal Plants, People, Planet, scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Huarango Nature and paramotorists from Forest Air, highlight the exciting potential of paramotoring as a means of aiding research and conservation efforts in some of the most fragile and challenging parts of the globe.

The study's authors demonstrate how paramotoring is a faster and more environmentally friendly alternative to 4x4 off-road vehicles (including motorbikes); able to reach outlying areas, reducing CO 2 emissions of up two-thirds, and most importantly with negligible damage to the fragile desert fog habitats and unexplored biological crusts.

The paper outlines the results of a challenging expedition to the coastal fog deserts of Peru, where Kew scientists, with the support of a National Geographic explorers grant, teamed up with professional paramotorists to explore and collect plants in areas where humans have yet to collect and survey plants.

Faced with the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, scientists are expanding the arsenal of tools at their disposal in a race against time to describe and protect plants and habitats threatened with extinction. Key to success in this race is the ability to conduct fieldwork to collect plant specimens, study populations, and delineate the geographic distribution of plants and their ecosystems.

But what happens when scientists are unable to reach certain locations, or the time-saving benefits offered by off-road vehicles are overshadowed by the huge impact they can have on the environment?

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