MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

New Chairman for Falkland Islands Trust.

The new Chairman of the Falkland Islands Trusts (FIT) is Air Commodore Peter Johnson, OBE, BA, FIMGt, former Commander of British Forces in the Falkland Islands (CBFFI) in 1994 and 1995. He succeeds Captain Paddy Vincent CBE, RN (ret), who was born in the Falkland Islands.

Air Commodore Peter Johnson, 54, is the third military officer to be chairman, each from one of the three services. The founder- Chairman, Major General Nigel St G. Gribbon, OBE, is still Vice- President.

Since becoming a popular CBFFI, Peter Johnson has taken an active interest in promoting the Islands' well-being both in the Falklands and in the United Kingdom. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Falkland Islands Association and now becomes the FIT representative on the Shackleton Scholarship Fund Committee.

In retirement from the Royal Air Force, he has become a management consultant as well as a grammar school mathematics teacher. An experienced RAF pilot, he flew several types of aircraft - Jet Provosts, Meteors, Hunters, Phantoms and Jaguars, and held posts at RAF Stations and the Ministry of Defence in Britain and abroad, in Germany, Aden, the United States (as Assistant Air Attache), and in Cyprus as Commander of the RAF base at Akrotiri, Cyprus, during the build-up and conduct of the Gulf War against Iraq.

Air Commodore Johnson's interests include aeromodelling, skiing (water and snow), music and the Open University. He and his wife Jill have two young sons.

Captain Vincent's chairmanship included the first visit to the Falkland Islands by the Trust's Patron, Princess Alexandra, in February, 2000.

Since its inception, the Falkland Islands Trust has launched many initiatives, mainly to improve agriculture, providing expertise and advice and carrying out research and practical experiments in growing crops, soil fertility, establishing trees, raising livestock, composting and organic farming. It works closely with the Falklands Department of Agriculture and co-operates with Chile's Punta Arenas University (of Magallanes) in an experiment growing imported Southern Beech trees.

The Trust has an expert consultant, Dr Jim McAdam, Northern Ireland Agriculture Department's Principal Scientific Officer, and an Islander Trustee, the head of the Hydroponic Nursery, Tim Miller, as well as its London Trustees.

The Trust oversees the Shackleton Scholarship Fund set up in 1995 in memory of the Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his son, Lord Shac