A British whale and dolphin expert will inspire Bermuda's youngest conservationists at a special Bermuda Zoological Society (BZS) conference next week.

Miss Sophie Benbow, research development manager of conservation group Blue Ventures will be the keynote speaker at the BZS Environmental Youth Conference 2008 on April 16 and 17.

Blue Ventures is an award-winning charity working to conserve marine life in the Indian Ocean nation of Madagascar.

"The theme of the conference is the 'Power of One'," Miss Benbow said in a telephone interview. "My lecture will be looking at how one company, in one small village, in one country can make a huge difference."

Sponsored by the Ernest E. Stempel Foundation and supported by the Ministry of the Environment and Sport, Department of Conservation Services and Bermuda National Trust, the biennial conference will be held at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo (BAMZ).

Approximately, 60 student delegates from all over the Island will attend the conference.

"We want to make sure delegates come away with the idea that, individually, they can make a difference," said BZS Education Officer Joseph Furbert. "They will be focusing on some of our important environmental issues and learning how they can personally take action to help protect and nurture the Bermuda natural environment."

In many ways Blue Ventures is an example of the power of one, or at least the power of one group.

"We have been working in Madagascar since 2004 when a group of students came up with the idea of setting up a conservation project there," said Miss Benbow. "Since then they have gone from strength to strength. Now we employ 35 people out there and run lots of different programmes related to research community and education."

Part of Blue Ventures work is to show people how to make a living through the environment without exploiting it.

"We focus on making the community there sustainable," she said. "We are helping them find alternative lifestyles that reduce their marine impact."

For example, Blue Ventures helps the local people with handicraft ideas so they can make things to sell to visiting tourists and scientists. They run a women's association, and train local people to be eco-guides.

"I think we are helping the community we are looking at," said Miss Benbow. "We are looking at how to develop and improve on things.

The 25-year-old conservationist said she has always been interested in conservation. She started as a science intern at the Blue Ventures office in London in 2006 and worked her way up.

"I did that for four or five months and then I went to Madagascar in February 2007 and worked there for nine months and am now back in London."

In university, she did her undergraduate and post-graduate work looking at whales and dolphins. She was particularly interested in the impact of whale watching tours on humpback whales.

"In the region we work in, there is little of this kind of impact, because the humpback whales pass too far offshore for the fishermen and dive boats to bother them," she said.

She is currently working to compile her whale data into publishable form.

This will be Miss Benbow's first trip to Bermuda. She said she was looking forward to getting in a few dives while on the Island, and looking at the coral reefs.

Miss Benbow will give a free public lecture at BAMZ on April 15, at 7 p.m. There will be a reception at 6.30 p.m. For more information, call 293-2727.

"My lecture to the general public will be more hard hitting about how we need to do something and how to achieve marine conservation," she said. "I will be running down why we need to do this, and why we need to start thinking about all of the things we are doing in the world to stop the degradation of the environment."