WWF - For a living planet

Then one day, after years of incarceration, he was being moved from one dank, gloomy dungeon to another... and for a moment or two, he saw the sky again.

"All of us take that kind of sight for granted," he says. "But for me, seeing the sky and feeling the wind on my face was a simple experience I'll never forget."

Those few moments made him determined that on his release, he’d do as much as he could for the environment. And that is why, today, Terry Waite is a WWF ambassador.

"In these days of climate change and other natural threats, we have to recognise that we are all stewards of our environment," he declares. "We are given this wonderful world and we have the capacity to make or break it."

During his days as a Beirut hostage, Terry Waite learned the art of patience " a quality, he says, that's also necessary when working to improve the environment. "It's a long-term task, but perhaps we ought to be a little more impatient, a little more anxious to say, ‘look, if we don’t get things right now, if we don't remedy things, we're going to be in great difficulty in the future’."

The environment, the ambassador believes, also requires our compassion. "We need opportunities to demonstrate our compassion in action in our behaviour towards the environment," he says, "and supporting WWF is one way of doing just that. There's a great deal that we ordinary people can do for the planet if we invoke our energy, enthusiasm and vision. And if I can utilise whatever skills I have for the benefit of WWF and all that it does, then I'm glad to do so."

In addition to his work as a WWF ambassador, Terry Waite is founder chairman of Y Care International, a trustee of the Butler Trust, patron of the Strode Park Foundation for the Disabled, a Member of Council of Victim Support, and an active supporter of many other charities. Taken on Trust, his account of his time as a Beirut hostage, is published by Coronet Books.