DODGING venomous snakes and battling trench foot were jungle hazards a Worcester undergraduate fought while he helped regenerate rainforest in Borneo.

Chris Connor, from St Peter's, spent two tough and wild months as a scientific volunteer on the island in the Indian Ocean, for conservation charity Trekforce Expeditions.

The 19-year-old, who returned home this week, joined 22 other volunteers from across the UK to plant 30,000 saplings in the Royal Society's South East Asian Rainforest Research Programme (SEARRP) experiment.

Battling his blisters, Chris helped plant a mixture of trees in various parts of a heavily-logged area to discover the most effective regeneration combination.

Although he slept in a hammock covered by a mosquito net and worked nearly 12 hours-a-day, Chris said it was an extremely worthwhile project which should influence scientific study for years to come.

"Everyone involved in the work knew how important this project was," he said.

"We used 16 species of trees in the experiment, split over a 500-hectare plot.

"In some areas only around four types of sapling were used, in others around eight and some parts had the full variety.

"All these areas will be assessed for the ability and ease with which they regenerate and the data will be used to deal with issues such as deforestation in the future."

He said scary moments involved stumbling across a large viper while clearing jungle undergrowth and coping with blisters and trench foot while wading through jungle rivers.

"One of my friends saw the snake and we all stood still thinking how big it was," he said.

"Then we went back to camp and found out that its bite could kill a human in six hours."

Chris said his feet had now been dry for a week and had stopped rotting - just in time for him to start studying economics at Edinburgh University.