The boy from Brazil

4:33pm Wednesday 1st August 2007

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A BUDDING wildlife conservationist is desperate to be the next David Attenborough after two weeks in South America searching for endangered animals.

Lewi Jinks, 13, of Kingsley Close, Blackburn, entered a competition last year and was shortlisted from thousands of entries to take part in a series of Saving Planet Earth on BBC 1.

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Lewi, who aims to follow either David Attenborough's or Bill Oddie's footsteps, won one of seven places to go in search of endangered species.

Lewi, a keen birdwatcher, was offered a trip to Pantanal, Brazil, on the border of the Amazon rainforest, to find the largest flying parrot species in the world, the hyacinth macaw.

After spotting them, they have now become one of his favourite creatures, alongside tigers.

His two-week adventure, filmed last November, has been aired on Children's BBC.

And while out in Brazil, he received a video message from Bill Oddie and he also received a letter from David Attenborough after the live Saving Planet Earth show on July 6.

Lewi, a pupil at St Bede's High School, Blackburn, said: "It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Bill Oddie sent a video message whilst we were in Pantanal, he wished us good luck.

"I look up to people like David Attenborough and Bill Oddie. I met David when I went to the live show in July.

"We usually stayed at a lodge but we camped out at the jaguar safari and that was a bit scary.

"It was different and more colourful than the bird-watching I do in Brockholes Quarry.

"I don't like football, and I wanted to find something that I'm good at. I used to watch wildlife programmes and I want to help save the planet."

In September last year, Lewi put together a two-minute video about why he would like to save the planet and was whittled down to the final 10.

He was chosen as a winner after a two-day selection at Woburn safari park in Milton Keynes, during which he had to give a short presentation on a Madagascan hissing cockroach.

Lewi and another winner Jack Common, 12, from Nottingham, were in the hands of the world's top birdwatcher, Charlie Munn in the search for the hyacinth macaws.

Lewi also went on a jaguar safari and saw jabiru storks - the biggest stork in South America - capybara, the largest rodent in the world, and even caught red-bellied piranha's to feed to giant otters.