In one Swiss village, Caux, above Montreux, the conferences are a little different.

It was not a scene you would have expected at a scientific meeting.

The nine million readers of the Japanese paper, Yomiuri, read in June of how another Welsh war veteran was building bridges with Japan.

The exchange took place in the wake of Japan's Recruit corruption scandal and as events in China built up towards the massacre in Tiananmen Square.

Another African leader, General Joseph Lagu, former Vice-President of the Sudan, also took part. As a guerrilla leader in the bush, he fought against the Arab North in Sudan's first civil war.

Inspired by the dream that India's Western Ghats might be re-afforested by the year 2000, over 60 senior college and university students from throughout New Zealand applied to join.