Dave Currey (environmentalist)
Encyclopedia
Dave Currey is an environmentalist
, writer and photographer. A minister's son, he was born in Sussex
in the UK and brought up in London. He gained a BA in Photographic Arts in 1976 following a passion in communicating visually. In 1976, following another passion, he walked 1,000 miles across Oregon
, Idaho
and Wyoming
to help raise awareness of conservation
issues for the World Wildlife Fund. On this journey his photographs, radio and television interviews were his introduction to a world of media co-operation that would steer his next thirty years in environmental activism
.
In 1979 he volunteered as a photographer on board the Greenpeace
ship Rainbow Warrior
during its Icelandic anti-whaling
campaign where he first met Allan Thornton, Greenpeace's director at the time. In 1983, while he was working in public relations
photography and teaching, Thornton persuaded him to join another anti-whaling ship, "Balaenoptera". With Jennifer Lonsdale, another Greenpeace veteran, they carried out undercover
work in the Norwegian port of Vado, posing as journalists to gain entry to whaling factories. They were able to truthfully insist they were not working for Greenpeace as the factory workers feared, but knew it was unwise to state they were on an independent environmental activist ship. The campaign was incredibly successful resulting in a two thirds reduction in whaling quotas
and huge embarrassment for the Norwegian government.
From 1978 to 1986 he often contributed to Wildlife magazine and later when it became BBC Wildlife
, for a while being their "roving naturalist" to places such as the Everglades National Park
, Yellowstone National Park
, and Baja California
, Mexico. He also acted as a book and television reviewer for the magazine. His nature photography
was widely used during this period and he was described as "one of the new breed of naturalist photographers, with a commitment to conservation and the style of a photojournalist."
with Jennifer Lonsdale (née Gibson) to document the world's largest whale kill - at that time over 2000 pilot whales. On return, together with Allan Thornton they established and became directors of the Environmental Investigation Agency
(EIA). They believed there was room for an organisation that gathered documentary evidence
of issues which would form the basis of a campaign as well as provide materials for the media.
Throughout most of EIA's history he acted as its senior investigator operating undercover all over the world.
He started as EIA's Campaigns Director and when Thornton briefly returned to Greenpeace in 1986, took over as Executive Director
until 1995. During this time he fronted many campaigns, co-authoring an account of the ivory
investigation with Allan Thornton in their book "To Save An Elephant". After 1995 he remained on the board and on staff and concentrated on building new campaigns, most notably to protect the Indian Tiger (1995–1999) and then rainforest
s in Indonesia
(1999–2007).
He was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Medal by the Animal Welfare Institute
with Allan Thornton in 1990 for their work protecting elephants and dolphins. EIA was awarded the Global 500 Roll of Honor by UNEP for "outstanding contributions to the protection of the environment" in 2001.
in Senegal
. From 1987-1989 he was undercover in Dubai
and Ajman
(UAE), Tanzania
, Kenya
, Singapore
and Hong Kong
posing as a journalist, photographer, tourist or ivory dealer. His work helped uncover the trade routes and dealers in poached ivory. In 1987 he was famously hoisted, with cameraman Clive Lonsdale, on a forklift truck crane to the top shelf of a warehouse in Dubai to photograph the neighbouring unit. Through a small hole cut in the cardboard packing case they filmed for 45 minutes the poached ivory being worked in the Poon brothers clandestine ivory factory. The documentation proved crucial in unravelling the ivory pipeline and EIA's successful launch of a campaign for an international ivory ban achieved in 1989.
His undercover experiences span twenty five years. For instance he has been stopped by the South African Police
wanting the name of an informant he could not divulge. In Guyana
and Senegal he can no longer operate undercover, having been threatened in the former with a gun. During the ivory investigations he was checking his car for bombs after credible warnings. He has stated that it can get dangerous, especially with multiple covers when working in the same country but he has a strong sense when to get out of a bad situation.
minke whales in Norway and hundreds of pilot whales and dolphins in the Danish Faroe Islands. He investigated the killing of dall's porpoise
in their tens of thousands in Japan. In his role for EIA he has attended the International Whaling Commission
(IWC) meetings as a delegate, had his photographs published widely and written numerous reports.
At one IWC meeting in 1990 EIA needed a resolution on small whales and dolphins to be proposed but sought a country to do this. When he heard the UK Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was due to appear on television just before him, he let the UK know. It made the difference and the UK, wishing to look good on television proposed the resolution. Currey was able to praise the move.
, took Desmond Hamill, senior foreign correspondent
with Independent Television News
(ITN), to Tanzania and the UAE. They filmed the ivory room in Dar es Salaam
, Tanzania and flew to Selous Game Reserve
to film anti-poaching units in the field. In the UAE they confronted one of the ivory dealers, George Poon, outside his secret Ajman factory. The first time he had been filmed. ITN put together three News Specials broadcast on 10, 11 and 12 May 1989 which had a powerful impact on the public, the UK government and other organisations. This was the perfect launch to EIA's campaign for an ivory ban achieved later the same year after the release of an explosive report, by Currey and Thornton, packed with evidence of the international ivory trade: naming names, describing routes, quoting dealers from hidden recordings and blowing apart many of the pro-trade arguments with documented evidence.
When attempts to reverse the ban were clearly to be made, Currey travelled with a companion to Zimbabwe
in November 1991, the pro-trade's main proponent. They uncovered corruption, illegal trade and the brutal death of Capt Nleya, a Zimbabwe National Army
(ZNA) officer who had reported poaching, smuggling
and cattle rustling by the ZNA in Mozambique
and along the Zimbabwe border, to the Under Secretary in the Defence Ministry. A hand-written note on 4 January 1989 from Capt Nleya to his wife, photographed by Currey as evidence, alleged he had been "collected by Special Investigations Branch and Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) members...Foul play is expected..." On 12 March his decomposed body was found under a tree behind Hwange
army barracks. A rope was hanging over a branch above his corpse. The next day CIO officers came to see his wife at her home and threatened to kill his brothers. On 14 March 1989 she was informed his body had been found. They uncovered other suspicious deaths of officials who attempted to expose the ZNA's involvement in elephant and rhino poaching. Currey and his companion were followed during this investigation.
He co-authored a report on the success of the ivory ban in 1994.
Currey has represented EIA as a delegate at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) on a number of occasions.
, Bolivia
, Côte d'Ivoire
, Ghana
, Guyana, and Senegal. He was central to co-operation between EIA, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
(RSPB) and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
(RSPCA) in a joint campaign to ban the wild bird trade. EIA's provision of evidence and startling photographs and film footage, and his personal experience in the field, gave him an important role with these much larger organisations.
He led an investigations team in Senegal in 1986 which uncovered every stage of the trade, from capture to export, in the exporting country. Senegal was the world's biggest exporter of wild-caught birds. They estimated 20 million wild birds were caught annually for the export trade, 50% dying before export. Once the air transport and quarantine
mortalities were considered, they estimated four out of five wild-caught birds died before sale to the public. The footage and photographs were used widely around the world and formed the basis of EIA's and other organisations' campaigns for years to come.
In November 1991 to promote the bird campaign and shoot new material for a National Geographic documentary, he led a three person team to Argentina. They documented the trail of capture to export of the Blue-fronted Amazon
parrot. It revealed extreme cruelty, illegality, conservation failures and high unreported mortalities. Within a year of the film showing, the Argentinian quota was set to zero. Further parrot trade was uncovered by Currey leading the same team in Ghana
and Côte d'Ivoire
in West Africa
. Co-operating with the Ghanain authorities they tracked African grey parrots caught illegally in Ghana being moved to neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire where they were "legalised" by corrupt officials for export. This investigation became part of a television documentary shown all over the world and additionally resulted in the arrest, set up by Currey and his team, of a Ghanain parrot dealer in the capital Accra
.
One of the greatest successes of the EIA wild-caught bird campaign was persuading over 70 airlines to voluntarily stop carrying wild birds.
conservation. The government was in denial over poaching, some wildlife wardens denied poaching to save face, conservationists and indigenous groups quarrelled. With strong advice from a group of trusted wildlife experts he put EIA's international campaign at the forefront of forcing government to face its failures and reconvene the Indian Board for Wildlife, chaired by the Prime Minister
which had not met for eight years.
In October 1996 Currey launched a new EIA report in London, Delhi
, Mumbai
, Bangalore
and Kolkata
with a hard hitting video public service announcement and video news release. "The Political Wilderness" report re-emerged in the media in different ways for over a year and helped revitalise discussion on tiger conservation in India. The Indian Board for Wildlife was reconvened.
Whilst researching the report, Currey was taken to the Indian State of Assam
by Sanjay Deb Roy, a former chief wildlife warden for Assam and later, for India. He had retired but was still active and the two men became friends. Deb Roy took Currey to Manas Tiger Reserve where armed insurgents had closed the park. Poachers moved relatively freely. Deb Roy had been instrumental in setting up this reserve while chief wildlife warden. In Kaziranga the situation was different. Brave forest guards risked their lives to protect tigers and one-horned rhinoceros from heavily armed poachers. But they needed equipment, salaries and uniforms.
Currey's photographic skills documented the plight of Kaziranga National Park and illustrated the problems faced in Assam in a hard-hitting article in the UK's Daily Telegraph Magazine. EIA launched an appeal guaranteeing that everything raised would be spent on the Park. Through this appeal EIA spent over £80,000 on essentials and boosted staff morale.
The campaign continued with a further report published to identify the problems for tigers in the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh
following research in the state. Currey stood back after this to let his colleague, Debbie Banks, continue the work.
and assess EIA's international role. They met with many local and national NGOs and struck up a close relationship with Telapak who they continue to work in partnership. They travelled to Kalimantan
where forest fires were raging and a million hectares of forest was being destroyed in a misguided government scheme to grow rice on acidic peat. They revealed it was an excuse to gain timber and lucrative construction contracts, so prevalent at that time.
With his team Currey decided to focus the campaign on the destruction of Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan and Gunung Leuser National Park
in Sumatra
, both vital orang-utan habitat. The high profile species assisted in communicating the problems of commercial illegal logging. He visited both places, helped film and photograph illegal logging, as well as undercover work in Kalimantan to identify the head of the timber mafia. It was a difficult time with one staff member of Telapak and one from EIA being kidnapped while investigating the timber baron Abdul Rasyid. Currey oversaw the rescue mission devoting tens of thousands of dollars of campaign funds to get them safely out of Kalimantan.
The kidnap gave EIA and Telapak publicity on which they built their campaign, successfully pushing through a ban on Indonesian ramin timber species, a main target for Rasyid's empire, and reaching powerful figures in the Indonesian government, including its President. Perhaps the most significant move came in 2001 in Bali
when governments gathered and, in the wake of the 9/11 attack the same week, agreed the Bali Declaration to renew efforts to protect forests. Currey and his team had been important catalysts to this change in international direction and although most governments did not live up to their agreement it provided a springboard to unilateral action in the US, the UK, Japan, the European Union
and exporting countries such as Indonesia.
Currey helped his team build strong and close relationships with local NGOs by securing grants for their participation from the UK's Department for International Development
and the EU.
and working with local NGOs he developed an EIA programme, with a donor's support, to train local activists in the use of cameras and video. He helped develop this by securing a grant from the UK's Department for International Development. This pioneering work has empowered over 100 Indonesian NGOs in the use of visual evidence in campaigning. It also enabled a local environmental radio station to stay on air after its aerial was hit by lightening as well as the setup of a television station in Sulawesi.
This training has since developed into one of EIA's core programmes.
showing his confrontation with ivory trader Mr Poon.
Besides using his professional photographic skills, Currey has filmed a great deal of video for EIA and commercial productions. He has also co-produced seven film documentaries shown on prime time British television (ITV) as the series Animal Detectives. Each programme showed EIA undercover operations on a particular species. Currey led four teams in the series and it boosted all the campaigns. In particular, the film on marine turtle (tortoise-shell) smuggling from the Maldives
to Sri Lanka
brought quick arrests and enforcement, helping to protect the hawksbill turtle
in the region.
This series produced with Paul Cleary and Goldhawk Media won a British Environment and Media Award for best film, the Brigitte Bardot International Genesis Award (Los Angeles), and the Gold Plaque at the Chicago Documentary Film Festival. Currey appeared on Discovery Channel
in the US making a speech when receiving the Genesis Award.
Animal Detectives was also shown on Animal Planet
Channel. Two other television series benefited from the footage and investigations carried out by Currey and his crew. They are Wildlife Detectives produced by Murphy Entertainment and shown throughout the world and a three part series on Germany's RTL2 channel.
He also co-produced and wrote (with Allan Thornton) a film Let Them Live about EIA broadcast by the BBC
in the UK.
Currey's friendship with Paul Cleary from Goldhawk Media with whom Animal Detectives was made had previously resulted in three other major documentaries made with EIA's full co-operation with Currey taking the lead EIA role. They were two National Geographic Voyager series films Dead on Arrival and Wildlife Detectives and a BBC Nature Special Whale Wars.
In addition two films were made entirely around Currey: Deadline 2000 and A New World
His photographs have also illustrated articles (linked to EIA campaigns) he has written for magazines including World magazine, Country Life
magazine, BBC Wildlife and The Scotsman
magazine.
In addition to writing and co-writing a plethora of reports over years, Currey has contributed to many newspapers and magazines. He co-authored "To Save An Elephant" about EIA's undercover and campaign work to obtain the ivory ban in 1989. This book, translated into Japanese, German and Russian, was described as "A savage indictment of an obscene trade" by BBC Wildlife Magazine
He has recently set up a publishing imprint
, Wild Press, with his long-term (since 1978) civil partner Gary Hodges
. They have so far published "Drawn to the Soul", a book of Hodges' wildlife art
coinciding with his 2010 retrospective show. The second book is a novel
set in Borneo written by Currey called "Stripped". Published in paperback and as a download this eco-thriller draws on Currey's experiences in Indonesia opposing the timber Mafia. It is unusual in that it authentically builds its plot around the destruction of the rainforest with a central gay
character. It has been described as a "completely new style of eco-thriller".
Environmentalist
An environmentalist broadly supports the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities"...
, writer and photographer. A minister's son, he was born in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
in the UK and brought up in London. He gained a BA in Photographic Arts in 1976 following a passion in communicating visually. In 1976, following another passion, he walked 1,000 miles across Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
and Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
to help raise awareness of conservation
Conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
issues for the World Wildlife Fund. On this journey his photographs, radio and television interviews were his introduction to a world of media co-operation that would steer his next thirty years in environmental activism
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
.
In 1979 he volunteered as a photographer on board the Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
ship Rainbow Warrior
Rainbow Warrior
-Vessels:*Rainbow Warrior , a former fishing trawler, acquired by Greenpeace in 1978.**Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, by French intelligence operatives in 1985....
during its Icelandic anti-whaling
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...
campaign where he first met Allan Thornton, Greenpeace's director at the time. In 1983, while he was working in public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
photography and teaching, Thornton persuaded him to join another anti-whaling ship, "Balaenoptera". With Jennifer Lonsdale, another Greenpeace veteran, they carried out undercover
Undercover
Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...
work in the Norwegian port of Vado, posing as journalists to gain entry to whaling factories. They were able to truthfully insist they were not working for Greenpeace as the factory workers feared, but knew it was unwise to state they were on an independent environmental activist ship. The campaign was incredibly successful resulting in a two thirds reduction in whaling quotas
Production quota
A production quota is a goal for the production of a good. It is typically set by a government or an organization, and can be applied to an individual worker, firm, industry or country. Quotas can be set high to encourage production, or can be used to limit production to control the supply of goods...
and huge embarrassment for the Norwegian government.
From 1978 to 1986 he often contributed to Wildlife magazine and later when it became BBC Wildlife
BBC Wildlife
BBC Wildlife is a British glossy, all-colour, monthly magazine about wildlife, founded by BBC Worldwide and published through the BBC Magazines Bristol division, also trading as Bristol Magazines Ltd....
, for a while being their "roving naturalist" to places such as the Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park is a national park in the U.S. state of Florida that protects the southern 25 percent of the original Everglades. It is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and is visited on average by one million people each year. It is the third-largest...
, Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...
, and Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
, Mexico. He also acted as a book and television reviewer for the magazine. His nature photography
Nature photography
Nature photography refers to a wide range of photography taken outdoors and devoted to displaying natural elements such as landscapes, wildlife, plants, and close-ups of natural scenes and textures...
was widely used during this period and he was described as "one of the new breed of naturalist photographers, with a commitment to conservation and the style of a photojournalist."
The Environmental Investigation Agency
In 1984 he travelled to the Danish Faroe IslandsFaroe Islands
The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...
with Jennifer Lonsdale (née Gibson) to document the world's largest whale kill - at that time over 2000 pilot whales. On return, together with Allan Thornton they established and became directors of the Environmental Investigation Agency
Environmental Investigation Agency
The Environmental Investigation Agency is an NGO founded in 1984 by Dave Currey, Jennifer Lonsdale and Allan Thornton, three environmental activists in the United Kingdom. Its stated goal is to investigate and expose crimes against wildlife and the environment...
(EIA). They believed there was room for an organisation that gathered documentary evidence
Documentary evidence
Documentary evidence is any evidence introduced at a trial in the form of documents. Although this term is most widely understood to mean writings on paper , the term actually include any media by which information can be preserved...
of issues which would form the basis of a campaign as well as provide materials for the media.
Throughout most of EIA's history he acted as its senior investigator operating undercover all over the world.
He started as EIA's Campaigns Director and when Thornton briefly returned to Greenpeace in 1986, took over as Executive Director
Executive director
Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...
until 1995. During this time he fronted many campaigns, co-authoring an account of the ivory
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
investigation with Allan Thornton in their book "To Save An Elephant". After 1995 he remained on the board and on staff and concentrated on building new campaigns, most notably to protect the Indian Tiger (1995–1999) and then rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
s in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
(1999–2007).
He was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Medal by the Animal Welfare Institute
Animal Welfare Institute
The Animal Welfare Institute is a non-profit charitable organization founded in 1951 with the goal of reducing pain and fear inflicted on animals by humans...
with Allan Thornton in 1990 for their work protecting elephants and dolphins. EIA was awarded the Global 500 Roll of Honor by UNEP for "outstanding contributions to the protection of the environment" in 2001.
Working undercover
Since the investigation in Vado in 1983 he has led teams all over the world. His teams' findings include uncovering wild primates smuggled to British laboratories from Gambia, massive mortalities in wild birds caught for petsPETS
PETS may be an acronym for:* Pet Travel Scheme, which allows animals to travel internationally without quarantine* Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act...
in Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
. From 1987-1989 he was undercover in Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
and Ajman
Ajman
Ajman , also spelt Ujman, is one of the seven emirates constituting the United Arab Emirates . With an area of just 260 square kilometres , Ajman is the smallest emirate by area...
(UAE), Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
posing as a journalist, photographer, tourist or ivory dealer. His work helped uncover the trade routes and dealers in poached ivory. In 1987 he was famously hoisted, with cameraman Clive Lonsdale, on a forklift truck crane to the top shelf of a warehouse in Dubai to photograph the neighbouring unit. Through a small hole cut in the cardboard packing case they filmed for 45 minutes the poached ivory being worked in the Poon brothers clandestine ivory factory. The documentation proved crucial in unravelling the ivory pipeline and EIA's successful launch of a campaign for an international ivory ban achieved in 1989.
His undercover experiences span twenty five years. For instance he has been stopped by the South African Police
South African Police
The South African Police was the country's police force until 1994. The SAP traced its origin to the Dutch Watch, a paramilitary organization formed by settlers in the Cape in 1655, initially to protect civilians against attack and later to maintain law and order...
wanting the name of an informant he could not divulge. In Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
and Senegal he can no longer operate undercover, having been threatened in the former with a gun. During the ivory investigations he was checking his car for bombs after credible warnings. He has stated that it can get dangerous, especially with multiple covers when working in the same country but he has a strong sense when to get out of a bad situation.
Whaling
He has witnessed and photographed the killing of fin whales in IcelandIceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
minke whales in Norway and hundreds of pilot whales and dolphins in the Danish Faroe Islands. He investigated the killing of dall's porpoise
Dall's Porpoise
Dall's porpoise is a species of porpoise found on the North Pacific. It came to worldwide attention in the 1970s when it was disclosed for the first time to the public that salmon fishing trawls were killing a lot, thousands of Dall's porpoises and other cetaceans each year by accidentally...
in their tens of thousands in Japan. In his role for EIA he has attended the International Whaling Commission
International Whaling Commission
The International Whaling Commission is an international body set up by the terms of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling , which was signed in Washington, D.C...
(IWC) meetings as a delegate, had his photographs published widely and written numerous reports.
At one IWC meeting in 1990 EIA needed a resolution on small whales and dolphins to be proposed but sought a country to do this. When he heard the UK Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was due to appear on television just before him, he let the UK know. It made the difference and the UK, wishing to look good on television proposed the resolution. Currey was able to praise the move.
Elephants and the ivory trade
In 1989 Currey, using his considerable first-hand knowledge of the international ivory tradeIvory trade
The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and most commonly, Asian and African elephants....
, took Desmond Hamill, senior foreign correspondent
Foreign correspondent
Foreign Correspondent may refer to:*Foreign correspondent *Foreign Correspondent , an Alfred Hitchcock film*Foreign Correspondent , an Australian current affairs programme...
with Independent Television News
Independent Television News
ITN is a news and content provider with headquarters in the United Kingdom. It is made up of four key businesses: ITN News, ITN Source, ITN Productions and ITN Consulting. The ITN logotype can be displayed in any of 4 different colours, each of which represents a business unit. This is the...
(ITN), to Tanzania and the UAE. They filmed the ivory room in Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam , formerly Mzizima, is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: ...
, Tanzania and flew to Selous Game Reserve
Selous Game Reserve
The Selous Game Reserve is one of the largest faunal reserves of the world, located in the south of Tanzania. It was named after Englishman Sir Frederick Selous, a famous big game hunter and early conservationist, who died at Beho Beho in this territory in 1917 while fighting against the Germans...
to film anti-poaching units in the field. In the UAE they confronted one of the ivory dealers, George Poon, outside his secret Ajman factory. The first time he had been filmed. ITN put together three News Specials broadcast on 10, 11 and 12 May 1989 which had a powerful impact on the public, the UK government and other organisations. This was the perfect launch to EIA's campaign for an ivory ban achieved later the same year after the release of an explosive report, by Currey and Thornton, packed with evidence of the international ivory trade: naming names, describing routes, quoting dealers from hidden recordings and blowing apart many of the pro-trade arguments with documented evidence.
When attempts to reverse the ban were clearly to be made, Currey travelled with a companion to Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
in November 1991, the pro-trade's main proponent. They uncovered corruption, illegal trade and the brutal death of Capt Nleya, a Zimbabwe National Army
Zimbabwe National Army
The Zimbabwe National Army is the land warfare branch of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. The ZNA currently has an active duty strength of 30,000.-History:...
(ZNA) officer who had reported poaching, smuggling
Smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
and cattle rustling by the ZNA in Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
and along the Zimbabwe border, to the Under Secretary in the Defence Ministry. A hand-written note on 4 January 1989 from Capt Nleya to his wife, photographed by Currey as evidence, alleged he had been "collected by Special Investigations Branch and Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) members...Foul play is expected..." On 12 March his decomposed body was found under a tree behind Hwange
Hwange
Hwange is a town in western Zimbabwe, in the province of Matabeleland North. It is named after the chieftain of Zwange, who is now called Chief Hwange. The town was known as Wankie until 1982. According to the 1992 Population Census, the town had a population of 42,581...
army barracks. A rope was hanging over a branch above his corpse. The next day CIO officers came to see his wife at her home and threatened to kill his brothers. On 14 March 1989 she was informed his body had been found. They uncovered other suspicious deaths of officials who attempted to expose the ZNA's involvement in elephant and rhino poaching. Currey and his companion were followed during this investigation.
He co-authored a report on the success of the ivory ban in 1994.
Currey has represented EIA as a delegate at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) on a number of occasions.
The wild bird trade
He has investigated the trade in wild-caught birds for pets in ArgentinaArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Côte d'Ivoire
Côte d'Ivoire
The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast is a country in West Africa. It has an area of , and borders the countries Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana; its southern boundary is along the Gulf of Guinea. The country's population was 15,366,672 in 1998 and was estimated to be...
, Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, Guyana, and Senegal. He was central to co-operation between EIA, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Bird Notes and News was first published in April 1903.The title changed to 'Bird Notes' in 1947. In the 1950s, there were four copies per year . Each volume covered two years, spread over three calendar years...
(RSPB) and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a charity in England and Wales that promotes animal welfare. In 2009 the RSPCA investigated 141,280 cruelty complaints and collected and rescued 135,293 animals...
(RSPCA) in a joint campaign to ban the wild bird trade. EIA's provision of evidence and startling photographs and film footage, and his personal experience in the field, gave him an important role with these much larger organisations.
He led an investigations team in Senegal in 1986 which uncovered every stage of the trade, from capture to export, in the exporting country. Senegal was the world's biggest exporter of wild-caught birds. They estimated 20 million wild birds were caught annually for the export trade, 50% dying before export. Once the air transport and quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
mortalities were considered, they estimated four out of five wild-caught birds died before sale to the public. The footage and photographs were used widely around the world and formed the basis of EIA's and other organisations' campaigns for years to come.
In November 1991 to promote the bird campaign and shoot new material for a National Geographic documentary, he led a three person team to Argentina. They documented the trail of capture to export of the Blue-fronted Amazon
Blue-fronted Amazon
The Blue-fronted Amazon , also called the Turquoise-fronted Amazon and Blue-fronted Parrot, is a South American species of Amazon parrot and one of the most common Amazon parrots kept in captivity as a pet or companion parrot...
parrot. It revealed extreme cruelty, illegality, conservation failures and high unreported mortalities. Within a year of the film showing, the Argentinian quota was set to zero. Further parrot trade was uncovered by Currey leading the same team in Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
and Côte d'Ivoire
Côte d'Ivoire
The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast is a country in West Africa. It has an area of , and borders the countries Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana; its southern boundary is along the Gulf of Guinea. The country's population was 15,366,672 in 1998 and was estimated to be...
in West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. Co-operating with the Ghanain authorities they tracked African grey parrots caught illegally in Ghana being moved to neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire where they were "legalised" by corrupt officials for export. This investigation became part of a television documentary shown all over the world and additionally resulted in the arrest, set up by Currey and his team, of a Ghanain parrot dealer in the capital Accra
Accra
Accra is the capital and largest city of Ghana, with an urban population of 1,658,937 according to the 2000 census. Accra is also the capital of the Greater Accra Region and of the Accra Metropolitan District, with which it is coterminous...
.
One of the greatest successes of the EIA wild-caught bird campaign was persuading over 70 airlines to voluntarily stop carrying wild birds.
Indian tiger conservation
Currey carried out an in depth research trip to India in 1995, meeting conservationists, government officials, villagers and assessing if EIA could have a useful role in tigerTiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
conservation. The government was in denial over poaching, some wildlife wardens denied poaching to save face, conservationists and indigenous groups quarrelled. With strong advice from a group of trusted wildlife experts he put EIA's international campaign at the forefront of forcing government to face its failures and reconvene the Indian Board for Wildlife, chaired by the Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
which had not met for eight years.
In October 1996 Currey launched a new EIA report in London, Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
, Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
and Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
with a hard hitting video public service announcement and video news release. "The Political Wilderness" report re-emerged in the media in different ways for over a year and helped revitalise discussion on tiger conservation in India. The Indian Board for Wildlife was reconvened.
Whilst researching the report, Currey was taken to the Indian State of Assam
Assam
Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...
by Sanjay Deb Roy, a former chief wildlife warden for Assam and later, for India. He had retired but was still active and the two men became friends. Deb Roy took Currey to Manas Tiger Reserve where armed insurgents had closed the park. Poachers moved relatively freely. Deb Roy had been instrumental in setting up this reserve while chief wildlife warden. In Kaziranga the situation was different. Brave forest guards risked their lives to protect tigers and one-horned rhinoceros from heavily armed poachers. But they needed equipment, salaries and uniforms.
Currey's photographic skills documented the plight of Kaziranga National Park and illustrated the problems faced in Assam in a hard-hitting article in the UK's Daily Telegraph Magazine. EIA launched an appeal guaranteeing that everything raised would be spent on the Park. Through this appeal EIA spent over £80,000 on essentials and boosted staff morale.
The campaign continued with a further report published to identify the problems for tigers in the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh , often called the Heart of India, is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and Indore is the largest city....
following research in the state. Currey stood back after this to let his colleague, Debbie Banks, continue the work.
The timber trade and Orang-utans
In 1998 Currey led a team to Indonesia to document illegal loggingIllegal logging
Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase or sale of timber in violation of laws. The harvesting procedure itself may be illegal, including using corrupt means to gain access to forests; extraction without permission or from a protected area; the cutting of protected species; or the...
and assess EIA's international role. They met with many local and national NGOs and struck up a close relationship with Telapak who they continue to work in partnership. They travelled to Kalimantan
Kalimantan
In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....
where forest fires were raging and a million hectares of forest was being destroyed in a misguided government scheme to grow rice on acidic peat. They revealed it was an excuse to gain timber and lucrative construction contracts, so prevalent at that time.
With his team Currey decided to focus the campaign on the destruction of Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan and Gunung Leuser National Park
Gunung Leuser National Park
Gunung Leuser National Park is a national park covering 7,927 km² in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, straddling the border of North Sumatra and Aceh provinces. The national park, named after Mount Leuser , protects a wide range of ecosystems. An orangutan sanctuary of Bukit Lawang is located inside...
in Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, both vital orang-utan habitat. The high profile species assisted in communicating the problems of commercial illegal logging. He visited both places, helped film and photograph illegal logging, as well as undercover work in Kalimantan to identify the head of the timber mafia. It was a difficult time with one staff member of Telapak and one from EIA being kidnapped while investigating the timber baron Abdul Rasyid. Currey oversaw the rescue mission devoting tens of thousands of dollars of campaign funds to get them safely out of Kalimantan.
The kidnap gave EIA and Telapak publicity on which they built their campaign, successfully pushing through a ban on Indonesian ramin timber species, a main target for Rasyid's empire, and reaching powerful figures in the Indonesian government, including its President. Perhaps the most significant move came in 2001 in Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...
when governments gathered and, in the wake of the 9/11 attack the same week, agreed the Bali Declaration to renew efforts to protect forests. Currey and his team had been important catalysts to this change in international direction and although most governments did not live up to their agreement it provided a springboard to unilateral action in the US, the UK, Japan, the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
and exporting countries such as Indonesia.
Currey helped his team build strong and close relationships with local NGOs by securing grants for their participation from the UK's Department for International Development
Department for International Development
The Department For International Development is a United Kingdom government department with a Cabinet Minister in charge. It was separated from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1997. The goal of the department is "to promote sustainable development and eliminate world poverty". The current...
and the EU.
Other campaigns
As executive director of EIA up to 1995 (and board member afterwards) Currey has been involved in most EIA campaigns. This includes marine turtle conservation in Sri Lanka, a ban on ozone-depleting substances, the environmental threats to whales and dolphins and a campaign to stop the use of rhinoceros horn in Taiwan.Visual training for activists
In 1998 when Currey returned from witnessing the forest fires in BorneoBorneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
and working with local NGOs he developed an EIA programme, with a donor's support, to train local activists in the use of cameras and video. He helped develop this by securing a grant from the UK's Department for International Development. This pioneering work has empowered over 100 Indonesian NGOs in the use of visual evidence in campaigning. It also enabled a local environmental radio station to stay on air after its aerial was hit by lightening as well as the setup of a television station in Sulawesi.
This training has since developed into one of EIA's core programmes.
Documentary films and other media
In his role as EIA's spokesperson for two decades Currey has fronted dozens of press conferences and been interviewed hundreds of times on television, radio and for newspapers. His undercover background has sometimes provided comical copy such as "They giggled, kissed and held hands just like any other honeymoon couple. But each night they slept back to back. For Dave Currey and Lydia Swart were no ordinary newlyweds. They were ecodetectives...." He has even been immortalised in a cartoonCartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
showing his confrontation with ivory trader Mr Poon.
Besides using his professional photographic skills, Currey has filmed a great deal of video for EIA and commercial productions. He has also co-produced seven film documentaries shown on prime time British television (ITV) as the series Animal Detectives. Each programme showed EIA undercover operations on a particular species. Currey led four teams in the series and it boosted all the campaigns. In particular, the film on marine turtle (tortoise-shell) smuggling from the Maldives
Maldives
The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...
to Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
brought quick arrests and enforcement, helping to protect the hawksbill turtle
Hawksbill turtle
The hawksbill sea turtle is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only extant species in its genus. The species has a worldwide distribution, with Atlantic and Pacific subspecies. E. imbricata imbricata is the Atlantic subspecies, while E...
in the region.
This series produced with Paul Cleary and Goldhawk Media won a British Environment and Media Award for best film, the Brigitte Bardot International Genesis Award (Los Angeles), and the Gold Plaque at the Chicago Documentary Film Festival. Currey appeared on Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
in the US making a speech when receiving the Genesis Award.
Animal Detectives was also shown on Animal Planet
Animal Planet
Animal Planet is an American cable tv specialty channel that launched on October 1, 1996. It is distributed by Discovery Communications. A high-definition simulcast of the channel launched on September 1, 2007.-History:...
Channel. Two other television series benefited from the footage and investigations carried out by Currey and his crew. They are Wildlife Detectives produced by Murphy Entertainment and shown throughout the world and a three part series on Germany's RTL2 channel.
He also co-produced and wrote (with Allan Thornton) a film Let Them Live about EIA broadcast by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in the UK.
Currey's friendship with Paul Cleary from Goldhawk Media with whom Animal Detectives was made had previously resulted in three other major documentaries made with EIA's full co-operation with Currey taking the lead EIA role. They were two National Geographic Voyager series films Dead on Arrival and Wildlife Detectives and a BBC Nature Special Whale Wars.
In addition two films were made entirely around Currey: Deadline 2000 and A New World
Photography and Writing
His photographic professionalism has provided EIA with considerable media opportunities. The most notable photo spreads using his images have appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Magazine, and Life.His photographs have also illustrated articles (linked to EIA campaigns) he has written for magazines including World magazine, Country Life
Country Life (magazine)
Country Life is a British weekly magazine, based in London at 110 Southwark Street, and owned by IPC Media, a Time Warner subsidiary.- Topics :The magazine covers the pleasures and joys of rural life, as well as the concerns of rural people...
magazine, BBC Wildlife and The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
magazine.
In addition to writing and co-writing a plethora of reports over years, Currey has contributed to many newspapers and magazines. He co-authored "To Save An Elephant" about EIA's undercover and campaign work to obtain the ivory ban in 1989. This book, translated into Japanese, German and Russian, was described as "A savage indictment of an obscene trade" by BBC Wildlife Magazine
He has recently set up a publishing imprint
Imprint
In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...
, Wild Press, with his long-term (since 1978) civil partner Gary Hodges
Gary Hodges
Gary Hodges is also the name of a member of The 4-Skins.Gary Hodges is a British artist and publisher much admired internationally for his graphite pencil wildlife art...
. They have so far published "Drawn to the Soul", a book of Hodges' wildlife art
Wildlife art
Wildlife art is one of humanity's earliest art forms, dating back to prehistoric cave paintings such as those found at the grotto of Lascaux in France....
coinciding with his 2010 retrospective show. The second book is a novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
set in Borneo written by Currey called "Stripped". Published in paperback and as a download this eco-thriller draws on Currey's experiences in Indonesia opposing the timber Mafia. It is unusual in that it authentically builds its plot around the destruction of the rainforest with a central gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
character. It has been described as a "completely new style of eco-thriller".