Tribe wanted : my adventure on Paradise or Bust

Two twenty something ex students, Ben and Mark had an idea... having watched the success of community website like My Space, they wondered if you could harness the energy of an online community to effect change in the real world.

What if they put a website in charge of developing an eco tourism project on a desert island?

The idea snowballed. A chance airport meeting led to Fuji where they met a local tribal leader, impressed by Ben and Mark's vision, and sharing their belief in the benefits of sustainable tourism he decided to take a chance on them and agreed to lease them an island.

Next they designed a website and called it Tribewanted.

Tribewanted was picked up by newspapers and TV around the globe.

Within weeks people from 35 countries had signed up to join the tribe.

Within six months of having the initial idea the first members of the tribe arrived on the island in Fuji and started constructing a thatched roofed Burre - a Fujian style barn that was to be the first building on the island.

On the website members of the tribe argued passionately about what direction the project should take and voted on every major decision.The success of the project is now in the hands of the members of the tribe.

Will they pull together and make it work? Now, this is a major 5 part series for transmission on BBC2 next Autumn.

The book will be written in diary style by Ben and Mark and follows their lives over the course of the first 18 months of the project.