Straightening the map that she has just unfurled on to the table, Marija Minic gestures towards the last stand of rainforest in Negros Island in central Philippines. Trouble is, I can't see it. Blowing a crumb off the surface of the paper, she reveals the tiny woodland that remains in an area once covered in dense tropical foliage. 'Fifty years ago it was practically all covered,' she says.
Having just returned from a six-month replanting and conservation expedition to Sitio Campuestohan, near Mount Kanla-on National Park, Minic is back in Hong Kong on the lookout for a new conservation mission.
Born in Toronto, Canada, the 28-year-old had just completed an MSc in biodiversity and Conservation at Leeds University in Britain when she saw an advert on her department notice board. 'There was this chance to travel to the Philippines and I couldn't resist,' admits Minic, whose quest for adventure previously brought her to Hong Kong to study the pink dolphins of the Pearl River Delta.
'The place where I worked was near Bacolod City, and what was unbelievable was that most of the school kids who'd come on planting trips had never been to the rainforest - despite the fact that most only lived 30 minutes away.'
Minic's project work helped her appreciate the root of the deforestation problem around Bacolod.
'The one thing I learned is that if these people don't have a viable alternative for income, what else could they possibly do but use the resources around them?' she explains. 'You could bring in all the legislation in the world but if the only way these people are going to survive is from illegal logging then of course it will continue. You have to educate - they might make 20,000 pesos [HK$3,040] but that tree they cut down will take 100 years to grow back.'