IT’S hard, frankly, not to feel a tad envious as I talk to James Morgan. It’s a balmy evening in Indonesia and he’s relaxing in a café as reggae tunes pump out of a nearby stereo; I picture sand, cocktails and a postcard sunset.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the phone, in the artificial light of the Echo offices, I look around. My colleagues are tapping furiously at their keyboards and the faint sounds of computers humming provides the soundtrack – it’s a close call, but I think I’d sooner be in Indonesia.

“I do have a lot of fun,” says James, modestly.

However, unlike most 24-year-old Brits visiting Indonesia, his trip isn’t a whimsical gap adventure. The photographer is on important business with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), helping the organisation, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, to raise awareness of environmental issues affecting the region.

“I studied anthropology and I’ve always been interested in different cultures and their relationship with the environment,” he says.

“And I love story-telling and taking photos.”

Hoping to nurture James’s talents behind the camera, last year the Royal Photographic Society awarded him a £4,000 grant to shoot a story about nomadic fishermen in the Philippines.

“There is a big problem out there,” explains James.

“Big boats from China and Australia come to the area and clear the region of fish, so the sea nomads have to dive even deeper to find anything.”

Many of them suffer from decompression sickness and employ unorthodox fishing techniques using dynamite and cyanide to paralyse fish in the water and make them easy to catch. Both methods are devastating to sensitive marine life, particularly coral.

James’ incredible photographs of the sea gypsies helped him land the job at the WWF.

“I’m based in the Coral Triangle, one of the most diverse stretches of ocean in the world,” he says, excitedly. “It’s still relatively pristine out here.”

The Coral Triangle encompasses waters off the coasts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste, and covers almost 1.6billion acres – an area about half the size of the United States.

James, who grew up in Christchurch and was educated in Winchester, travels around the Coral Triangle covering some fascinating stories.

“I will be back in the Philippines in a couple of weeks and then down to West Papua,” he says.

“I’m doing a story about leatherback turtles, which come thousands of miles to breed on this remote island. But they want to start mining for gold near the beach and drilling for oil off the coast, which could be devastating for them.”

However, before that he will be shooting a video in Sumatra for the WWF’s Forestry Department.

“I’m filming a story on palm oil,” explains James, who will report how the demand for the vegetable fat is causing rampant deforestation and habitat loss for orang-utans.

“I’d like to get into making feature films and documentaries for television.”

As fascinating as it maybe, does life as a travelling photographer get lonely?

“Not really,” he says.

“I’ve got a lot of good friends out here, although I think long term I will be looking at returning to England.”

As he says this I look out the window at the grey sky – if I were him, I wouldn’t hurry back.