LOCAL man Mike Brewer will be on his travels again soon when he visits Niger and Benin in West Africa, where he will be training rangers in anti-poaching tactics.

Mike, a retired Detective Sergeant in Avon and Somerset Police, was born and grew up in Wellington, attending Court Fields School. Since retiring from the police he has travelled to locations around the world delivering training to law enforcement officers in various African countries, including Cameroon, Niger and Madagascar, Belize in Central America, Mongolia and The Philippines in Asia.

Each deployment is different, spending time in the jungles of Cameroon with the Eco Guards to meeting the British Ambassador in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.

The training requirements also vary greatly from basic law enforcement training covering evidence and intelligence gathering as well as interviewing suspects in Africa, to advising on the benefits of a proper intelligence system in Mongolia.

The common theme across the world is the commitment and bravery of the officers who put themselves in harms way to protect endangered species for future generations.

Mike's trips are seldom without drama. He was in the jungles of Cameroon in March, 2020, unaware that the world was closing down due to Covid. Returning to the capital Yaoundé, he was advised to leave as soon as possible and managed to get and flight out two days before the country shut down preventing anyone entering or leaving. In addition, the hotel he was in waiting to leave, caught fire. In the absence of an efficient fire service Mike helped the hotel staff fight the fire.

In June, 2021, returning from another trip his flight went through Addis Ababa in Ethiopia resulting in a ten day stay in an isolation hotel on arrival back in the United Kingdom.

Madagascar was hit by two Cyclones while he was there, and when in Mongolia, Russia invaded Ukraine, meaning that his return flight could not fly over Russian airspace.

Mike will be hoping that his next trip training basic law enforcement to new recruits passes without incident.