Since late last year, many column inches have been given over to the implications of HSBC's purchase of Bank of Bermuda for the organisation's employees. From redundancies to broader career opportunities within the HSBC network for those who remain; from share option packages to new training initiatives. But conducting environmental activities and conservation research? Not issues most people would associate with a bank.

However, Bank of Bermuda employees Susan Amos, Wendy Mcleod and Rose Stupfel have been chosen to participate in HSBC's Employee Environmental Fellowship Programme for 2004, which includes several hundred HSBC employees from around the world. Although the Fellowship programme for 2004 was already underway, HSBC decided to give Bank of Bermuda employees an opportunity to take part. A small group of nominees were invited to apply for the three places and after a rigourous selection process Mrs. Amos, Business Systems Analyst, Treasury Operations, Ms Mcleod, Information Technology Director and Ms Stupfel, Client Delivery Associate, Global Connect, were the successful applicants.

"The HSBC application form was quite extensive and subsequent to that we had to do another set of paperwork for Earthwatch, but clearly it was worth it in the end!" says Mrs. Amos.

HSBC's Employee Environmental Fellowship Programme is an element of the bank's Investing in Nature in 2002 initiative. HSBC Chairman Sir John Bond, launched the five year, $50 million environmental partnership with three of the world's leading conservation charities: World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Botanic Gardens Conservation International and Earthwatch. HSBC has been working with Earthwatch to send over 2000 HSBC employees on scientific field projects all over the world to work on vital conservation research.

The Bermuda participants for this year have all had a long-standing interest in environmental issues.

"My parents were interested in the environment so I basically grew up with it and have always been active," says Mrs. Amos, who has been a director of Keep Bermuda Beautiful (KBB) for seven years, the last two as president. "My husband's the same, he's the secretary of the Audubon Society. We plant endemics, we compost and we recycle as much as we can. We're raising our son and daughter to be environmentally aware as well."

"I've always been interested and having come here from Vancouver where there's so much open space, my particular interest over the past 16 years has been on helping to preserve green space in Bermuda," says Ms Mcleod.

She belongs to several local environmental groups, including the Bermuda Aquarium Museum and Zoo and the Audubon Society, and she is a former Volunteer of the Year of the National Trust, where she remains actively involved.

For Ms Stupfel, actively supporting the environment, as opposed to just having a general interest in the issue, has led to her concentrating on conserving marine life here.

"I was a late bloomer in terms of getting active but I'm very happy to have gotten involved with protecting Bermuda's reefs," she says. Her most current project locally is involvement in fish surveys with an organisation called REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation).

"It's part of an initiative monitoring marine life globally," says Ms Stupfel. "The information we collect here in Bermuda will be put into a database in the US to track trends around the world."

The three women will visit three distinctly different countries for their respective research projects. Mrs. Amos will leave Bermuda on July 18 to spend 12 days in New Zealand to study the impact of the interaction between dusky dolphins and tourism activities. She says she is thrilled to be a part of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

"The close association to other people involved in environmental programmes should lead to positive environmental relationships for Bermuda," she says.

On July 19, Ms Mcleod will travel to Picos de Europa, the mountainous area of northern Spain which contains one third of all European butterfly species and 40 different types of orchids, of particular interest to her since she grows these beautiful blooms at home. She will be involved in the cataloguing of the bio-diversity of the area, which is at risk because of intensive farming practices.

"I am looking forward to being part of an environmental field project. It's a rare and exciting opportunity, particularly in banking!" she says. "I'm also a member of some environmental organisations overseas, such as the WWF, so I'm always reading about research projects in their newsletters. Now I'll actually be part of one."

She adds that meeting colleagues from other parts of HSBC's international network will also be a big plus.

"I'm in a project team of six, and there'll be people from India, Malaysia, Japan and the UK as well as me from Bermuda in my team; what a great opportunity to meet others from the group."

Ms Stupfel will visit the Baltic Island wetlands in early August. She will participate in surveys to assess the abundance of wetland habitats to determine how each reacts to recent neglect of the land. The data will help conservation managers assess future restoration needs of wetland sites and monitor the impact of current site management.

"The experience will be invaluable, as it will always be a resource to draw from personally, professionally and in my future efforts regarding conservation. It will also give me the confidence to encourage colleagues to respect and care for the environment in which they live."

When they return to Bermuda they are required, as a condition of participating in the programme, to brief their colleagues about their field experience and to carry out a local environmental project with a further grant from HSBC.

"I'd like to promote environmental education among young people when I get back," says Mrs. Amos. "I think it's really important to raise awareness and understanding about protecting the environment to children and young people as early as possible. They can end up teaching their parents, as well as future generations."

Ms Stupfel is thinking along similar lines: "I want to more involved in the orientation of youngsters for the REEF project, to get more young people participating and volunteering to support the cause."

"I'm interested in doing some habitat restoration on Bermuda's shoreline or on one of the small islands that the National Trust and the Audubon Society look after," says Ms Mcleod. "But it's possible that the three of us could get together when we're all back to see whether we can do a joint project."

These three Bermuda employees are the first to participate in the HSBC programme, but will not be the last as all Bank of Bermuda staff will be invited to apply for the 2005 Fellowship programme. The women are ready to make the most of the experience and use the knowledge they gain from their respective projects to further the cause of protecting the environment in Bermuda.

"It's exciting for us but it's also good for Bermuda," says Mrs. Amos. "We'll be able to make people aware of the impact of what they do in terms of threats to the environment from an even more informed position."