Robin Hanbury-Tenison

Biographical Information

Robin Hanbury-Tenison, OBE, "is a Founder and President of Survival International, the world’s leading organisation supporting tribal peoples. 'Named as the greatest explorer by the Sunday Times, he has been on over 30 expeditions, including as leader of the Royal Geographical Society’s largest expedition, taking 115 scientists to study the rainforests of Sarawak. This research and his book, “Mulu: the Rainforest”, started the international concern for tropical rainforests.

"On Survival’s behalf he has led several overseas missions, including visiting 33 Indian tribes as a guest of the Brazilian government in 1971; Indians of the Darien in Panama and Colombia in 1972; tribes of the outer islands of Indonesia in 1974 and 1975; leading an investigation into excessive logging in Sarawak in 1988; assessing the status of the indigenous peoples of eastern Siberia in 1992 and 1994; and in NE India in 1995; and of the Bushmen of the Kalahari in 1980 and 2005.

"A graduate of Oxford University, he has been a Council Member, and is a Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society; winner of the Pio Manzu Award; an International Fellow of the Explorers Club, Winston Churchill Memorial Fellow, Trustee of the Ecological Foundation and Fellow of the Linnean Society. Among his many publications are: A Question of Survival, 1973; A Pattern of Peoples, 1975; The Yanomami, 1982; Fragile Eden, The Oxford Book of Exploration; Mulu: The Rain Forest; and his two autobiographies: Worlds Apart and Worlds Within."

"He is a Director of Sustainable Forestry Management (SFM) Ltd., and of RIE Associates Ltd, a private consultancy on sustainable environmental management." CV

"One of the founders in 1969 of Survival International www.survival-international.org 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."

Affiliations

• Trustee (2008), Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest Trust
• Trustee, Ecological Foundation (1988-2005)
• President, Cornwall Wildlife Trust (1988-1995)