Dave Currey

Dave Currey (born 1953) is a British 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.

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."

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.

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 pets in Senegal.

In 1984 he travelled to the Danish Faroe Islands 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".

From 1987 to 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.

He has witnessed and photographed the killing of fin whales in Iceland 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.

He was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Medal by the Animal Welfare Institute with Allan Thornton in 1990 for their work protecting elephants and dolphins.

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 Ministry of 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.

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 rainforests in Indonesia (1999–2007).

EIA was awarded the Global 500 Roll of Honor by UNEP for "outstanding contributions to the protection of the environment" in 2001.