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ROBIN
HANBURY-TENISON OBE, DL, Dhc, MA, FLS, FRGS
Explorer,
Conservationist, Broadcaster, Film Maker, Author, Lecturer, Campaigner,
Farmer
Born: 7 May
1936
Educated: Eton; Magdalen College, Oxford (MA)
EXPLORER
AND CONSERVATIONIST. Named
by the Sunday Times in 1982 as "the greatest explorer of the past 20
years", and again in 1991 as one of the 1000 "Makers of the 20th
Century" (between Dag Hammarskjold and Keir Hardy), he has been on over
30 expeditions.
1957: Drove from London
to Ceylon and worked passage around the world.
1958: Made first land
crossing of South America at its widest point (Mrs Patrick Ness Award,
RGS, 1961).
1962-66: Saharan camel travels
with Tuareg exploring Tassili n'Ajjer, Tibesti and Aïr mountains.
1964-65: Made first river
crossing of S America from north to south from the Orinoco to Buenos
Aires.
1968: Geographical Magazine
Amazonas Expedition by Hovercraft, from Manaus to Trinidad.
1969: Trans-African
Expedition by Hovercraft (Deputy Leader). Dakar to Lake Chad to the
Congo.
1971: Visited 33 Indian
tribes (with Marika) as Chairman of Survival International/guest of
Brazilian Govt..
1972: British Trans-Americas
Expedition. Researched Indian tribes of Darien in Panama and
Colombia.
1973: Travelled Outer Islands
of Indonesia (with his wife Marika) to research tribal people for
Survival Int.
1974: Explored Eastern
Sulawesi and made first overland crossing.
1976: Expedition recce
through Sabah, Brunei and Sarawak.
1977-78: Led the Royal
Geographical Society's largest expedition ever, taking 115 scientists
to the interior of
Sarawak in Borneo (RGS Patron's Gold Medal, 1979); the research from
this
expedition, and his book,Mulu: the Rainforest, started the
international concern for tropical
rainforests.
1980: Walked across part of
Kalahari Desert with Bushmen
1980-81: Expeditions in Ecuador,
Brazil and Venezuela.
1981: Lived with Yanomami
tribe in Brazil researching a book for Time Life.
1984: With his wife, Louella,
rode two Camargue horses across France.
1986: Rode (with Louella)
along the Great Wall of China.
1987: Led a mission for IUCN,
FOE and Survival Int. to investigate the arrest of Malaysian
environmentalists and Borneo tribal people
for campaigning against excessive logging in Sarawak.
1988: Rode (with Louella)
from South to North through New Zealand.
1989: Rode (with Louella) as
pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela.
1990: Mission to Eastern
Europe to assess investment and environmental opportunities.
1991: Rode (with Louella)
across Spain driving 300 cattle on the transhumancia.
1992: Visited tribal people
of Kamchatka and Ussuria for Survival Int.
1994: Delivered Landrover for
Survival Int. to Udege people of Ussuria.
1994: Rode (with Louella) the route of proposed Pennine Bridleway.
1995: Visited tribal people of Arunachal Pradesh, NE India.
1997: Stayed with Innu people at Lake Kamistastin, Labrador.
1998: First return visit to Mulu, Sarawak. Made film for
Channel 4.
1999: Rode by camel (with Louella) through Tenere Desert, accompanied
by Tuareg.
2001: Diving in the Red Sea (PADI Cert.). 2002: diving with Silkie
sharks off Cuba.
2003: Travelled alone with Tuareg and camels through Aïr
mountains of Niger for 40 days.
2005: Visited all remaining Bushman groups in Central Kalahari
2006: Penetrated the Kimberley region of NW Australia to seek
prehistoric ‘Bradshaw’ rock paintings.
2007: Rode on Albanian horses (with Louella) the whole length of
Albania. Made film.
He has been a Council
Member (1968-82), Vice-President
(1982-86) and Gold Medallist (1979) of the Royal Geographical Society;
an International Fellow of the Explorers Club, a Winston Churchill
Memorial Fellow (1971), a Trustee of the Ecological Foundation
(1988-2005), President of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust (1988-1995) and
of the Camel Valley and Bodmin Moor Protection Society (1984-), Patron
of the Cornwall Heritage Trust, Fellow of the Linnean Society, Member
of the Society of Authors and a winner of the Krug Award for Excellence
(1980). Doctor honoris
causa,
University of Mons-Hainaut for "services to democracy" 1991. Chairman
of Friends of Conservation 1999. Mungo Park Medal
RSGS,
2001. Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Cornwall 2003.
A frequent lecturer at
schools, universities, learned
societies (especially the RGS) and on cruise ships, he has often worked
with young people. One of the founders of the Young
Explorers'
Trust and of the Expedition Advisory Centre, he organised Capital
Radio's Venture Days in Battersea Park in 1982/83. Opened by
the
Prince of Wales, they attracted the biggest crowds to date in London,
other than for royal weddings.
He is a Director of
Sustainable Forestry Management
(SFM) Ltd., and of RIE Associates Ltd, a private consultancy on
sustainable environmental management.
BROADCASTER,
FILM MAKER AND AUTHOR. A
regular contributor of articles and reviews to many magazines and
newspapers, including the Times, Telegraph, Mail, Express, Geographical
Magazine (columnist '95-'98), New Scientist, Field, Traveller,
Spectator, Country Life and Literary Review. Frequent radio
broadcasts on various subjects (Desert Island Discs, Loose Ends, Ad
Lib, Farming Today's Breakfast Guest, Start the Week, Mid Week's
Birthday Guest, The Moral Maze etc.)
Numerous TV interviews
(The Late Late Show, Fragile
Earth, Pebble Mill, The Big Breakfast Show, World in Action, Newsnight
etc.) and films for Television including: The Last Great
Journey
on Earth (BBC 1969); Trans-Africa Hovercraft Expedition (BBC 1970); A
Time for Survival (Westward 1972); Mysteries of the Green Mountain (BBC
1978); Antiques at Home (BBC 1984); White Horse over France (BBC
1985/also FR3 in French); Great Wall of China (1987); Odyssey series
(presenter) (1988); Siberian Tigers (C4 News and Land Rover promotion
1994); Collectors' Lot (1998); The Lost World of Mulu (C4 1999);
Reflections in the Sand (Discovery 2000); Testament (Carlton 2000).
He is also the author of the following
books:-
The Rough and the Smooth 1969;
Report of a Visit to the
Indians of Brazil, 1971; A Question of Survival
1973 A Pattern of Peoples
1975; Mulu: The
Rain Forest 1980, rep. 1992, 2005; The Yanomami 1982
Worlds Apart (autobiography) 1984, rep.
1991, 2005 (1st as Des Mondes a part in French, 1984)
White Horses over France 1985,
2005;
The
Rainforests: a Celebration (contrbtr.)1989
A Ride along the Great Wall 1987, 2005 rep.
conds. 1995 as Mysterious China & trans. 8 langs.
Fragile Eden 1989, 2005; Spanish
Pilgrimage 1990, 2005; Save the Earth (contrbtr.) ed. J
Porritt 1991.
The Oxford Book of
Exploration 1993, 2005; Our Countryside (contrbtr) 1996; The
English Landscape (contrbtr) 2000
Children's
Books: Jake's Escape 1996; Jake's Treasure 1998;
Jake's Safari 1998
Capturing Carbon and
Conserving Biodiversity: a market approach (contrbtr) 2003;
Worlds Within 2005.
More Tales from the
Travellers (contrbtr) 2005, Meetings with remarkable Muslims (contrbtr)
2005, The Seventy Great Journeys in History (2006).
Publishers include: Robert Hale, Collins,
Angus & Robertson,
Scribners, Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, Time Life Books, Robert
Laffont,
Granada, Arrow, Century, Hutchinson, OUP, Red Fox, The Long Riders'
Guild Press, Thames & Hudson.
3.
CAMPAIGNER. One of the founders in
1969 of Survival
International the
worldwide movement to support tribal peoples, he was Chairman until
1981, when he received an OBE for his work, and he has since been
President. On Survival's behalf he has led several overseas
missions assessing the status of indigenous peoples in South America,
Africa, SE Asia, India, Siberia and Canada. He regularly meets
ambassadors and High Commissioners to discuss their countries' abuses
of tribal peoples' rights. In 2000 he received the Pio Manzu
medal of the Italian Chamber of Deputies for his 'defence of tribal
peoples'. He is a frequent attendant at both conferences and
protests concerning environmental destruction, especially that of
tropical rain forests. President Rain Forest Club
2001-5.
From 1995 to 1998 he
was Chief Executive of the
British Field Sports Society, now the Countryside Alliance.
He
organised the hugely successful Countryside Rally, which brought
130,000 people to Hyde Park in July 1997, and the Countryside March
when 300,000 marched through London in 1998, the largest ever peaceful
demonstration in the capital to date. He was named
Personality of
the Year by the International Council for Game and Wildlife
Conservation in 1999 and Patron of the Countryside Alliance in 2003.
4.
FARMER. Since
1960 he has farmed over 2000 acres on Bodmin Moor in
Cornwall. In
addition to conventional hill farming of sheep and cattle,
diversification has been tried with Angora Goats, Red Deer and Wild
Boar from Russia. From 1993-1996 he was a member of the South
West Regional Panel of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food. He was a founder member of FWAG, on the Cornwall
Committee
of the CLA, a member of Invest in Britain (formerly Think British)
Campaign (1987-) and is an Ambassador for the Westcountry Development
Corporation. In 1998 he was awarded the Farmers Club Cup for
his
outstanding contribution to farming, agriculture and the countryside
and in 2000 the Contribution to the Countryside Award by the CLA.
He was married, first,
to Marika (née Hopkinson) the
food writer, who died in 1982, by whom he has a daughter, Lucy
(b.1960), and a son, Rupert (b.1970). In 1983 he
married
Louella Edwards (née Williams), who has two sons, Harry (b.1979) and
Peter (b.1981). They have a son, Merlin (b.1985), They live
in a
Doomsday manor house on Bodmin Moor, where they provide Bed &
Breakfast. See: www.cabilla.co.uk
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