A tall ship recreating Charles Darwin’s famous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle has reached the halfway point of its journey.

The 107-year-old Oosterschelde left Plymouthin Devon, in August last year on a two-year trip around the globe.

The voyage will be used to train 200 young environmentalists from around the world aboard the ship, which has been described as “the world’s most exciting classroom.”

Stewart McPherson, founder and project director of Darwin200, said: “We are training the world’s most impressive young conservationists to become leaders who will change the world of tomorrow.”

He said the “really intensive” program covered “a wide range of topics,” from “marine iguanas in the Galapagos Islands to parrots in South America.”

The team also broadcasts lessons live to schools around the world every week, Mr McPherson said.

The voyage recreates Darwin’s voyage aboard the Beagle as naturalist and captain’s companion, which inspired him to develop the theory of natural selection.

In May of this year he reached the Galapagos Islands, which played a central role in Darwin’s thinking about evolution.

Darwin, who was 22 years old when the ship set out on its five-year voyage in 1831, had originally planned to become a clergyman.

However, the observation of differences between species on the individual Galapagos Islands as well as his discovery of several extinct species of giant mammals in South America led him to question the biblical creation account and finally On the origin of specieshis masterpiece.

The team on the ship worked with young conservationists to make their own scientific discoveries.

According to McPherson, one team “rediscovered a species of gecko that was thought to be lost and extinct, and another team documented entirely new behaviors in a species of squid off the coast of Brazil.”

He said an “insect survey” in several locations, including Easter Island, had also discovered “ten new species of invertebrates” and that “children from all over the world” were being asked to help name the species.

The ship is currently circumnavigating the islands of the South Pacific before heading to New Zealand and Australia later this year.