Its musical equivalent in size and relevance would be something like Lollapalooza or Glastonbury festivals.

The Birdfair (British Birdwatching Fair) is the greatest world bird-centered event and festivity, attracting more than 20 thousand people each year and gathering some 450 exhibitors from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.

This year 2017, it will be held from the 18th to the 20th of August at its traditional grounds of Rutland Waters Natural Reserve, a RAMSAR site including one of the largest artificial lakes in Europe, 160 km from London, same location where this story began in 1989.

Present in the event since 1999, Far South Expeditions joins this three-day celebration of the passion for birdwatching as the common bond between visitors, exhibitors, tour business, writers, artists, sponsors and volunteers. “It is a global window into sharing the fascination for birds, but more than that, it aims to attract the public interested in nature and conservation”, reflects Claudio Vidal, partner and co-founder.

As one of the oldest Latin American exhibitors -and the only Chilean, so far- in the history of the Fair, FSE has been a front-row witness of the growth and evolution of an event that started in an almost improvised way in the pre-digital era, to a summit of ornithologists, butterfly, dragonfly and bat enthusiasts, optical equipment and photo gear developers, special field clothing and bird food companies. And together with the Fair, they have in turn grown up from a three-page leaflet to a 64-page printed catalogue and its corresponding virtual web edition for this upcoming 2018 season, showing birdwatching and wildlife programmes on a par with exhibitors from the likes of Guyana, Peru, Nepal and others. “Here, business from corporate level to one-man ventures have their place”, Vidal points out.

Not everything, however, is about birds or birding tourism or business talks. From its inception, the Fair has raised more than five million dollars for conservation projects, a sum that comes in no small part from the ticket sales. Projects are selected by BirdLife International and this financial support has led, among other things, to the creation of protected areas in different parts of the world. This year’s campaign, Saving Paradise in the Pacific, focuses on the islands of Polynesia and its seabirds, under threat from invading exotic species.

Besides from the chance to strengthen bonds and generate networking and business agreements, Claudio Vidal remarks on the friendly meeting atmosphere of the Fair, whose foundational concept is to listen and learn. The interest in birds, he assures, resonates around a more ample environmental theme. “It is fascinating to see how the interests broaden reaching out from something particular to something more universal”, he explains. On saturday 19th he’ll be offering a lecture on birds and mammals of Chile that´s usually attended by an enthusiastic crowd.