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."Green Gumshoes" by David Day, Sunday Times Magazine, 17 June 1990 He gained a BA in Photographic Arts in 1976To Save An Elephant by Allan Thornton and Dave Currey, Doubleday, 1991 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 campaignTime Europe, 9 July 1979 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."How it all began", article by Dave Currey in EIA 25 years book, EIA 2009
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,"Exploring the Everglades, by Dave Currey, Wildlife, April 1981 Yellowstone National Park,"Yellowstone" by Dave Currey, Wildlife Magazine, July 1982 and Baja California, Mexico."Whales – from Brighton to Baja" by Dave Currey, Wildlife Magazine, July 1981 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.""Natural Selection", What Camera Weekly, 20 March 1982
The Environmental Investigation Agency
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.Pilot Whaling in the Faroe Islands, an EIA Report, Currey and Gibson, 1985 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.Interview with Dave Currey, "Thena" Spiegel TV Jan 1997
Throughout most of EIA's history he acted as its senior investigator operating undercover all over the world."Private Eyes", Radio Times, 25–31 March 1995
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)"India trip 1995", Currey, an EIA Internal Report, 1995 and then rainforests 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.Schweitzer Medalists 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 pets in Senegal. 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.Animal Detectives press pack, Carlton UK Television, March 1995 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.The Guardian "Good Lives" 6 June 2006
Whaling
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.The Whale Butchers, Sunday Mirror, 5 April 1987 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."The Fight to cut the nets of death", Plus Magazine 26 September 1990
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. 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 trade, 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."Under Fire, elephants in the front line", Austin, Currey, Galster, Reeve, Thornton and Watts, EIA Report, Jan 1992,
He co-authored a report on the success of the ivory ban in 1994."Living Proof" by Dave Currey & Helen Moore, EIA Report Sept 1996
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.
In 2015 he started blogging, most notably on the renewed poaching crisis for African elephants and the ivory trade.Dave Currey's blog
The wild bird trade
He has investigated the trade in wild-caught birds for pets in Argentina, 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.The Wild Bird Trade, Investigations reports from Africa, South America and South-east Asia, EIA, RSPB, RSPCA, 1991
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."The Trade in Live Wildlife", by Nick Carter and Dave Currey, EIA report, 1987
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."Flight to Extinction" by Bowles, Currey, Knights, Michels, EIA and Animal Welfare Institute Feb 1992 Within a year of the film showing, the Argentinian quota was set to zero.Voyager – National Geographic – Dead on Arrival British Film Institute Further parrot trade was uncovered by Currey leading the same team in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in West Africa. Co-operating with the Ghanaian authorities they tracked 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 Ghanaian parrot dealer in the capital Accra.British Film Institute