Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Finding Eden: A Journey into the Heart of Borneo
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 5/7/1936
WEBSITE: http://www.robinsbooks.co.uk/
CITY: Cornwall
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
Phone: +44 (0)1208 821 224
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 50017849
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n50017849
HEADING: Hanbury-Tenison, Robin
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PERSONAL
Born May 7, 1936; married Marika Hopkinson (a food writer; died, 1982); married Louella Edwards Williams, 1983; children (first marriage): Lucy, Rupert; (second marriage) Merlin, stepsons Harry and Peter.
EDUCATION:Magdalen College, Oxford University, M.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Explorer, conservationist, broadcaster, filmmaker, lecturer, author, campaigner, and farmer. Founding member, Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG); co-founder, Survival International, 1969, chairperson, 1969-81, president, 1981–; South West Regional Panel, U.K. Ministroy of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, 1993-96; British Field Sports Society, chief executive, 1995-98.
MEMBER:Society of Authors; Rain Forest Club (president, 2001-05); Cornwall Red Squirrel Project (president, 2011); Invest in Britain (formerly Think British); Westcountry Development Corporation ambassador.
AWARDS:Explorers Club, International Fellow; Winston Churchill Memorial Fellow, 1971; Linnean Society Fellow; Royal Geographic Society Patron’s Gold Medal, 1979, and Mungo Park Medal, 2001;Krug Award for Excellence, 19890; OBE, 1981; named “greatest explorer of the past 20 years” by London Sunday Times, 1982, and one of 1000 “Makers of the 20th Century,” 1991; Farmers Club Cup, 1998; International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation Personality of the Year, 1998; Pio Manzu medal, Italian Chamber of Deputies, and CLA Contribution to the Countryside Award, both 2000; Patron of the Countryside Alliance, 2003; named “the doyen of British Explorers” by Spectator, 2006; Best Large Scale Renewable Energy Scheme in Cornwall Award, 2012. Honorary doctorates from the University of Mons-Hainaut and University of Plymouth.
WRITINGS
Author of introduction, Southern Cross to Pole Star: Tschiffeley’s Ride, by Aime Tschiffeley, Head of Zeus, 2014; Author of preface, Crossing the Congo, by Mike Martin, Chloe Baker, and Charlie Hatch-Barnwell,Hurst & company, 2016. Contributor to periodicals, including Times Literary Supplement, Times, Telegraph, Mail, Express, Geographical Magazine, New Scientist, Field, Traveller, Spectator, and Country Life.
SIDELIGHTS
An acclaimed explorer, broadcaster, and author, Robin Hanbury-Tenison has achieved many distinctions, having made the first documented east-west crossing of South America at its widest point (with companion Richard Mason) in 1958, and the first north-south river crossing of South American in 1964-65. Hanbury-Tenison began his exploring career in 1957, when he drove from London to Sri Lanka and then worked in exchange for ships’ passage around the world. He has made numerous journeys on every continent, often traveling in order to raise funds for Survival International, which seeks to protect the human rights of indigenous peoples around the world. Hanbury-Tenison c0-founded the organization in 1969 after learning about the exploitation of Amazon Indians, who face possible extinction due to disease, illegal deforestation, and violence. In 1971 the Brazilian government invited him to lead a Survival International field expedition to visit isolated Indian peoples in the Amazon region. This expedition led to increased global awareness of the critical importance of protecting tropical rainforests.
Since then, Hanbury-Tenison has walked across the Kalahari Desert; ridden across France on horseback; ridden along the Great Wall of China; led a mission to investigate illegal logging in Malaysia; traveled the length of New Zealand; made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain; and visited tribal people in Russia’s Kamchatka and Ussuria regions. He has also traveled in northern India, Labrador, the Sahara, Australia, Central America, and Antarctica, and made a trip on horseback, with his wife, across the length of Albania.
At his home in Cornwall, Hanbury-Tenison practices sustainable farming on Bodmin Moor, where he raises sheep and cattle as well as angora goats, red deer, and wild boar. In recent years he has focused on producing energy from renewable sources including wind, solar water, and biomass. In addition to editing several anthologies about explorers and the history of exploration, he is the author of a several books recounting his personal expeditions.
The Oxford Book of Exploration
Hanbury-Tenison modernized and updated the second edition of The Oxford Book of Exploration, originally published in 1993, adding contributions from writers such as John Hemming, a Canadian who studied indigenous peoples in the Amazon basin, and cave explorer Andy Eavis. But he admits in the book’s introduction that he has begun to doubt the purposes of exploration in the modern world, and to question the assumptions and practices of earlier explorers. “Few of the great explorers were the first people to get to where they were going,” he writes, “although they often fail to mention those who showed them the way. Often they were perfidious, shooting the welcoming natives without warning.”
Organized geographically according to continent, the book includes writings by early explorers such as Vasco da Gama, John Cabot, Ferdinand Magellan, and Sir Francis Drake, as well as by more modern figures including Alexander Von Humboldt, Dr. David Livingstone, Mary Kingsley, Alexandra David-Neel, Thor Heyderdahl, and Edmund Hillary.
The Great Explorers, The Modern Explorers, and The Seventy Great Journeys in History
The Great Explorers, which contains contributions from thirty-two explorers and academics, covers seven general subjects: oceans; land; rivers; polar ice; deserts; life on earth; and new frontiers. The legacies of iconic explorers from the 1550s to the twenty-first century are also discussed, and editor Hanbury-Tenison provides what Contemporary Review contributor Mick described as “elegant essays linking the separate sections.” The Modern Explorers, which Hanbury-Tenison edited with Robert Twigger, focuses on more recent figures such as Karen Darke, a wheelchair user who climbed Yosemite’s El Capitan; Meg Lowman, an ethnobotanist conducting research in French Guiana; and Pen Hadow, who researched changes in the Arctic’s sea ice.
In The Seventy Great Journeys in History editor Hanbury-Tenison has chosen narratives and commentary on journeys that he considers to of epic importance, from ancient times to the twenty-first century. Among these are the journeys of Genghis Khan; the forced migration of the Cherokee Nation away from their ancestral lands in North America (a journey known as the Trail of Tears); the journeys of American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart; and the Apollo space missions.
Worlds Apart and Worlds Within
In his memoir Worlds Apart: An Explorer’s Life Hanbury-Tenison reflects on his own travels and on the larger theme of exploration, acknowledging that the first encounters between Western explorers and indigenous peoples have too frequently led to colonization and exploitation. He describes his first visits to the Yanomami people of Brazil, the Penan people of Malaysia, and the Tuareg people of Libya, and writes of how he came to admire their self-sufficiency. Though he deplores colonialists’ and missionaries’ efforts to make these people change their habits–for example, by wearing clothing and becoming Christians–the author does not romanticize the lives of hunter-gatherers, pointing out that some of their traditions are “unnecessarily crude and cruel.” Even so, he argues firmly against the West’s assumption of cultural superiority, pointing out that the Yanomami have flourished on their own lands for some 15,000 years without any interference from outsiders.
The book discusses the founding of Survival International, and the Brazilian government’s decision in 1982 to provisionally set aside a protected area for the Yanomami. Observing that the Yanomami care nothing for material possessions, the author states that their survival is crucial “because some societies, through their viability and the hope they can give to a desperate world which sees its own extinction as dangerously imminent, deserve to survive so that the species may survive.” Pointing out that a nonfiction book should ideally “get the reader thinking about a human problem in a new way, Smithsonian contributor Dennis Drabelle wrote that Worlds Apart “does exactly that.”
In recounting the details of a forty-day expedition across the Sahara by camel in Worlds Within: Reflections in the Sand, Hanbury-Tenison also shares his emotional journey to free himself from the “chatter of the universe.” Writing in Geographical, Frankie Mullin said that the book’s mix of exotic setting, “grueling conditions,” and exciting anecdotes from the author’s earlier travels make it an example of “great armchair traveling.” Mullin particularly admired the author’s “deep-rooted enthusiasm” for the people he has encountered during his career.
Land of Eagles
Land of Eagles: Riding through Europe’s Lost Country is Hanbury-Tenison’s account of the journey he and his wife made across Albania on horseback. Albania is a mountainous country without any natural north-south routes; this difficult terrain, along with the fact that the author’s maps dated mainly from the 1950s, contributed to several misadventures. Relying on Albanian guides who spoke little English, the travelers often got lost and encountered hostility from local people.
The book did not favorably impress Geographical reviewer Robert Carver, who described the author as an “old-school, upper-crust pukka sahib” with no concern for the local people except to see them as potential employees or as “picturesque background” to his own adventure. The reviewer went on to say that the author’s difficulties were mostly self-created because of his rigid “expedition mentality.” According to Carver, travel in Albania is not particularly difficult; had Hanbury-Tenison heeded advice from local people, his journey would not have been the gritty ordeal that this book recounts.
Finding Eden
Hanbury-Tenison’s most recent book is Finding Eden: A Journey into the Heart, in which he recalls his expedition forty years earlier to the Gunung Mulu National Park in Borneo’s remote interior. For fifteen months, the author and his team lived in a virgin rainforest inhabited by indigenous peoples who had had almost no contact with the modern world. His diary entries from that time express his sense of wonder and excitement, but the book includes also material about his later visits to Mulu, which showed him the horrifying toll of deforestation and westernized lifestyles.
Despite the book’s melancholy message, the author also expresses hope that it is not too late to take actions that could save what is left of Mulu. He argues that management of the park should be returned to the local people, who would reinstate traditional forestry practices that could enable the environment to thrive once again. A writer for Publishers Weekly admired Hanbury-Tenison’s evocative description of this land and its people, concluding that the author “captures some of the beauty before its almost certain disappearance.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Hanbury-Tenison, Robin, The Oxford Book of Exploration, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.
Hanbury-Tenison, Robin, Worlds Within: Reflections in the Sand, Long Riders’ Guild Press, 2006.
Hanbury-Tenison, Robin, Worlds Apart: An Explorer’s Life, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1984.
PERIODICALS
California Bookwatch, March, 2016, review of The Modern Explorers.
Contemporary Review, June, 2011, review of The Great Explorers, p. 254.
Geographical, July, 2005, Nick Smith, review of The Oxford Book of Exploration, 2nd edition, p. 84; November, 2005, Frankie Mullin, review of Worlds Within, p. 80; July, 2009, Robert Carver, review of Land of Eagles: Riding through Europe’s Lost Country, p. 63; October, 2010, Mick Herron, review of The Great Explorers, p. 66; September, 2013, Mick Herron, review of The Modern Explorers, p. 60.
Library Journal, January 1, 2007, Margaret Atwater-Singer, review of The Seventy Great Journeys in History, p. 125.
Midwest Book Review, March, 2016, Paul Vogel, review of The Modern Explorers.
Publishers Weekly, Ocrober 30, 2017, review of Finding Eden: A Journey into the Heart of Borneo, p. 69.
Smithsonian, November, 1984, Dennis Drabelle, review of Worlds Apart, p. 227.
Spectator, January 21, 2006, Jeremy Swift, review of Worlds Within, p. 49; April 26, 2009, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, “Wilful Destruction of a World Wonder,” p. 35.
ONLINE
Robin Hanbury-Tenison Website, http://www.robinsbooks.co.uk (March 21, 2018).
ABOUT ROBIN
Robin Hanbury-Tenison OBE, DL, Dsc, Dhc, MA, FLS, FRGS is an explorer with a conscience. He has spent much of his life travelling in the world's rainforests and deserts and campaigning to protect both them and their people. One of the few remaining explorers who merits the name, he made the two first crossings of South America from East to West (1958) and North to South (1964/5). He believes that the spirit of exploration is alive and well and never more needed than now, as we begin to realise how little we really understand our world and how rapidly we are destroying it.
His latest book, Finding Eden, is a lyrical description of his year in the Borneo rainforest leading the team of scientists that launched the rainforest movement and his time with the delightful Penan people, for whom he still campaigns through Survival International, of which he is President.
The author of over twenty books, most of which are still in print, he also became celebrated as a photographer via the critically acclaimed exhibition at the National Theatre, Echoes of a Vanished World, that detailed his first encounters with pristine peoples and places...
From his farm on Bodmin Moor, which last year won the Award as the Best Large Scale Renewable Energy Project in Cornwall, he still travels widely, lecturing and visiting expeditions in the field.
NEW BOOK FINDING EDEN
FINDING EDEN
A Journey into the Heart of Borneo
Robin Hanbury-Tenison
Forty years ago the interior of Borneo was a pristine, virgin rainforest inhabited by uncontacted indigenous tribes and naïve, virtually tame, wildlife. It was into this 'Garden of Eden' that Robin Hanbury Tenison led one of the largest ever Royal Geographical Society expeditions, an extraordinary undertaking which triggered the global rainforest movement and illuminated, for the frst time, how vital rainforests are to our planet. For 15 months, Hanbury Tenison and a team of some of the greatest scientists in the world immersed themselves in a place and a way of life that is on the cusp of extinction.
Much of what was once a wildlife paradise is now a monocultural desert, devastated by logging and the forced settlement of nomadic tribes, where traditional ways of life and unimaginably rich and diverse species are slowly being driven to extinction. This is a story for our time, one that reminds us of the fragility of our planet and of the urgent need to preserve the last untamed places of the world.
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8 Great Challenges
MY 8 GREAT CHALLENGES FOR SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL
To celebrate entering my 80th year I have undertaken a series of eight challenges, one for each decade, to raise much needed funds for Survival International - the global movement for tribal peoples' rights. Survival, the charity I helped co-found in 1969, is the cause closest to my heart. I started with the London Marathon in April, which I finished in 6hrs 21 mins. This was followed by the the four highest mountains in the British Isles: Snowdon (1085m); Carrauntoohil (1038m), Ben Nevis (1344m) and Sca Fell (964m). The Sky Dive was terrifying and immensely invigorating. The scariest and most dangerous of my challenges was the abseil 761 ft down James Hall Shaft, the deepest shaft in the country, into icy water and a claustrophobic crawl through England's deepest cave, charmingly known as the Devil's Arse.Then there was the final one, the cross Channel waterski, which I attempted but was defeated by high seas. I did, however, do the equivalent distance along the Cornish coast and so, I think, honour was satisfied!
We passed the £80,000 mark on Virgin Giving on my 80th birthday in Scotland! With Gift Aid, it all came to a lot more.
Survival International
Survival International is the global movement for tribal peoples' rights. We're the only organisation that champions tribal peoples around the world. We help them defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.
Robin Hanbury Tenison, OBE, (b. 1936) is one of the founders and President of Survival International. Named by the Sunday Times (in 1982) as "the greatest explorer of the past 20 years" and as one of the 1000 "Makers of the 20th Century" in 1991, he has been on more than 30 expeditions including Survival's first ever field expedition visiting dozens of Indian peoples in 1971 at the invitation of the Brazilian government. His conclusions laid the groundwork for the international campaign for Brazilian Indians. He is a Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society, for whom he led their largest scientific expedition to date in 1977/78, spending fifteen months in the heart of Borneo. This expedition triggered the gloobal movement to protect tropical rainforests. His next book, Finding Eden, to be published in September 2017, tells this story and what has happened to the Penan people in the last forty years.
Desert Island Disks
In 1984 Robin appeared on Desert Island Disks.
You can hear the programme by pressing play on the audio player below.
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Robins CV
ROBIN HANBURY-TENISON OBE, DL, Dsc, Dhc, MA, FLS, FRGS
Explorer, Conservationist, Broadcaster, Film Maker, Author, Lecturer, Campaigner, Farmer
Born: 7 May 1936 Educated: Eton; Magdalen College, Oxford (MA)
1.EXPLORER AND CONSERVATIONIST.
Named by the Sunday Times in 1982 as "the greatest explorer of the past 20 years" and in 1991 as one of the 1000 "Makers of the 20th Century" (between Dag Hammarskjold and Keir Hardy), and again in 2006, in the Spectator, as ‘the doyen of British Explorers’, 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 (with Richard Mason) (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 1st wife 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 Marika) to research tribal people for Survival Int.
1974: explored Eastern Sulawesi and made first overland crossing (with Hugh Dunphy).
1976: expedition recce through Sabah, Brunei and Sarawak.
1977-78: led the Royal Geographical Society's largest expedition ever, taking 140 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 book for Time Life (with Bruce Albert and Victor Englebert).
1984: with his 2nd 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 (with Robbie Lyle and Louella)
1991: rode (with Louella) across Spain driving 300 cattle on the transhumancia.
1992: visited tribal people of Kamchatka and Ussuria for Survival Int (with Paul Harris).
1994: delivered Landrover for Survival Int. to Udege people of Ussuria (with Louella).
1994: rode (with Louella) the route of proposed Pennine Bridleway.
1995: visited tribal people of Arunachal Pradesh, NE India (with Paul Harris and Louella).
1997: stayed with Innu people at Lake Kamistastin, Labrador (with Louella and sons Peter and Merlin).
1998: first return visit to Mulu, Sarawak. Made film for Channel 4. (with Louella and Merlin)
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 (with Louella).
2006: penetrated the Kimberley region of NW Australia to seek prehistoric ‘Bradshaw’ rock paintings (with Louella).
2007: rode on Albanian horses (with Louella) the whole length of Albania. Made film.
2008: climbed Mt. Roraima, Venezuela (with Louella).
2009: Maya forest research in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize (with Louella).
2012: Visits to indigenous groups in Gran Chaco, Paraguay, and to Antarctica.
2014: returned to Mulu to make the second circuit of Mt. Api.
2015/6: Undertook 8 Challenges in his 80th year to raise £80,000 for Survival International.
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), Trustee of the Ecological Foundation (1988-2005), Commissioner of Income Tax (1965-95), President of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust (1988-95) 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). Hon. Dsc University of Plymouth (2012). 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.
2.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, TLS and Literary Review.
Frequent radio broadcasts on various subjects (Desert Island Discs, Loose Ends, Ad Lib, Today, Woman’s Hour, Farming Today’s Breakfast Guest, Start the Week, Mid Week’s Birthday Guest, The Moral Maze, A Good Read, Museum of Curiosities, The Reunion, Saturday Live 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;
White Horses over France 1985, 2005;
The Rainforests: a Celebration (contr.)1989;
A Ride along the Great Wall 1987, 2005 rep. conds. 1995 as Mysterious China;
Fragile Eden 1989, 2005;
Spanish Pilgrimage 1990, 2005;
Save the Earth (contr.) ed. J Porritt 1991;
The Oxford Book of Exploration 1993/4, 2005, 2010;
Our Countryside (contr.) 1996;
The English Landscape (contr.) 2000;
Capturing Carbon and Conserving Biodiversity: a market approach (contr.) 2003;
Worlds Within 2005;
More Tales from the Travellers (contr.) 2005;
Meetings with remarkable Muslims (contr.) 2005;
The Seventy Great Journeys in History 2006;
Land of Eagles 2009; The Great Explorers 2010;
Echoes of a Vanished World 2012;
Beauty Freely Given 2012;
The Modern Explorers 2013.
Children’s Books:
Jake’s Escape 1996;
Jake’s Treasure 1998
Jake’s Safari 1998
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, I.B.Tauris, Garage Press, Random House.
3. CAMPAIGNER.
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. President Cornwall Red Squirrel Project 2011.
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. Now farming energy from wind, solar, water and biomass. 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. In 2012 Cabilla Manor was winner of the Best Large Scale Renewable Energy Scheme in Cornwall Award.
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)
Print Marked Items
Finding Eden: A Journey into the Heart
of Borneo
Publishers Weekly.
264.44 (Oct. 30, 2017): p69+.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Finding Eden: A Journey into the Heart of Borneo
Robin Hanbury-Tenison. I.B. Tauris, $35 (240p) ISBN 978-1-78453-839-2
In this straightforward account, British explorer Hanbury-Tenison (Land of Eagles) recalls an expedition he
led four decades ago to Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, Borneo, which would eventually help to
launch the global rainforest-protection movement. Describing Mulu as "one of the most diverse and
interesting places on earth," Hanbury-Tenison bemoans the destruction that has occurred in places like it
over the years. He shares details of his experiences in Borneo, where, for example, among bats in darkened
caves, he stood "still in absolute pitch blackness, listening to the sounds of the underworld." HanburyTenison
meets Nyapun, an indigenous Penan nomadic hunter-gatherer, and makes a lasting connection.
Revisiting excerpts from diaries he kept in the field, Hanbury-Tenison finds depictions of "the excitement
and passion we all felt at the time." He concedes that other entries are little more than a "boring chronicle of
the logistics of the day." Hanbury-Tenison concludes with a look at ways in which Mulu has changed since
he first visited: trees have been "ripped out over vast tracts of country, leaving behind logging roads," and
rivers that were once filled with fish have turned brown. Celebrating Borneo's biodiversity and cautioning
against its degradation, Hanbury-Tenison captures some of the beauty before its almost certain
disappearance. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Finding Eden: A Journey into the Heart of Borneo." Publishers Weekly, 30 Oct. 2017, p. 69+. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A514357789/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e4f9336f. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A514357789
Crossing the Congo
Jules Stewart
Geographical.
88.10 (Oct. 2016): p65.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Circle Publishing Ltd.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/
Full Text:
CROSSING THE CONGO
by Mike Martin, Chloe Baker, Charlie Hatch-Barnwell; Hurst & Company; 20.00 [pounds sterling]
(hardback)
The Democratic Republic of Congo is Africa's most biodiverse country. Five of its national parks are listed
as World Heritage Sites and there are climates to suit every preference. So far, so good. But the civil wars
that began in 1996 resulted in more than five million deaths and left an enduring legacy of violence and
criminality. The Foreign Office warns of street crime and armed robbery and visitors are warned to 'be
prepared to move at short notice and lock down for a period of time'.
So why would three Britons with 'a PhD, two Oxbridge degrees and a batch of Masters degrees' between
them, undertake a 2,500-mile journey in a 25-year-old Land-Rover across this menacing land? This was a
return from an African tour, so in fact it is the story of getting home. The idea of 'discovery' is central to the
narrative, partly in understanding a little-known land, but also as 'an exploration of our personal limits and
the depths of our convictions'. Robin Hanbury-Tenison stresses this in his preface: 'Often the main
landscape being mapped by explorers is the internal one.'
Abandoning the security and comforts of home can bring about a sense of freedom, particularly when
moving through an environment unencumbered by the rule of law.
Such was the case of the adventurers who made it safely back from a harrowing north-south crossing of the
DRC river basin, from Kinshasa to Juba in South Sudan. Their success, as it unfolds in this lively narrative,
reflects a unique combination of skills--an Army veteran of Afghanistan to deal with logistics, a doctor to
look after medical issues and a photojournalist to set it down for the record in a splendid set of illustrations.
JULES STEWART
----------
Please note: Some tables or figures were omitted from this article.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Stewart, Jules. "Crossing the Congo." Geographical, Oct. 2016, p. 65. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A469502523/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=2ad7b6b9.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A469502523
The Modern Explorers
California Bookwatch.
(Mar. 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
The Modern Explorers
Robin Hanbury-Tenison and Robert Twigger, Editors
Thames and Hudson
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110-0017
www.thamesandhudsonusa.com
9780500516843, $44.95, www.amazon.com
Plenty of books offer histories of exploration, but The Modern Explorers goes where fewer books travel in
surveying the efforts of nearly forty explorers from various countries who have undertaken expeditions to
some of the remotest places on Earth. These intrepid individuals largely present their own experiences in
their own writing as they explain their experiences as part of expeditions, survey their encounters and
discoveries, and provide travel and adventure leisure audiences with accounts spiced with color images
throughout. This survey is written not with the scientist or historian in mind, but for the general-interest
reader seeking a lively modern collection of exploration experiences.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Modern Explorers." California Bookwatch, Mar. 2016. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A449661220/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0c6c8aa4.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449661220
The Modern Explorers
Paul T. Vogel
MBR Bookwatch.
(Mar. 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
The Modern Explorers
Robin Hanbury-Tenison & Robert Twigger, editors
Thames & Hudson, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110-0017
www.thamesandhudsonusa.com
9780500516843, $44.95, HC, 304pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by Robin Hanbury-Tenison (President of Survival
International and who has led expeditions in South America and Borneo) and Robert Twigger (the first
person to cross the Egyptian Great Sand Sea on foot), and enhanced with 268 illustrations (including 256 in
full color), "The Modern Explorers" profiles thirty-nine modern explorers who have disproved the idea that
there is nowhere left to discover and explore. Some are greatly experienced and are celebrated worldwide,
while others are young or less well known and just starting to make their mark. Here are challenging and
extraordinary expeditions to the remotest parts of the world by explorers from the United States, Australia,
China, France, and beyond. Eight thematic sections cover all terrains: Polar, Desert, Rainforest, Mountain,
Ocean, River, Under Sea, Under Land, and Lost Worlds. Written mainly by the explorers themselves, the
accounts provide a unique insight into what it is actually like to join an expedition, from being dragged
through the top of the rainforest canopy in an inflatable raft suspended from a balloon to pedaling a boat
across the Pacific to standing on the edge of an erupting volcano. Their stories are supplemented with
dramatic expedition photographs, many capturing the moment of discovery or danger.
Critique: An inherently fascinating and informative read from beginning to end, "The Modern Explorers"
will prove to be of extraordinary interest to academicians and non-specialist general reader with an interest
in the history of exploration. Impressively well written, organized and presented, "The Modern Explorers" is
strongly recommended for both community and academic library collections.
Paul T. Vogel
Reviewer
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Vogel, Paul T. "The Modern Explorers." MBR Bookwatch, Mar. 2016. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A449662598/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=39836d84.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449662598
The incredible journey: Sam Leith
marvels at a lone horseman's 10,000-mile
ride, braving bandits, quicksands,
vampire bats and revolution in search of
'variety'
Sam Leith
Spectator.
324.9694 (June 14, 2014): p36+.
COPYRIGHT 2014 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
http://www.spectator.co.uk
Full Text:
Southern Cross to Pole Star: Tschiffely's Ride
by Aimé Tschiffely
Head of Zeus, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 401, ISBN 9781781857205
Spectator Bookshop, 20 [pounds sterling]
Aimé Tschiffely was what I have seen in other contexts called a 'doublehard bastard'. In the middle of the
1920s, this Swiss-born schoolteacher at the age of 30 feared that he was getting stuck in a groove and that
he wanted 'variety'. So he set out on a solo horse-ride from Buenos Aires to New York City.
Tschiffely wasn't even much of a horseman at this point. But he had the notion that the wild Criollo horses
of Argentina--descendents of the Spanish horses transported to the continent by the Conquistadors in the
16th century and brought to excellence by their survival in that unforgiving environment in the centuries
since--were the hardiest horses for long riding in the world. Everyone else thought he was mad.
But off he set, and this volume--originally published in 1933--describes his journey: 10,000 miles over some
of the roughest country imaginable. Those who thought him mad would seem to have had a point. But he
made it--at least to Washington DC; he scrupled that going on to New York might look like showing off--
and in the manner of its telling, Southern Cross to Pole Star speaks of sanity: of pragmatism, fastidiousness
and determination. Also of being doublehard. An introduction by the explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison,
which is mostly about Robin HanburyTenison, testifies to the book's influence on long riders ever since.
It's quite a piece of work. Tschiffely made no claims for himself as a writer--the keynotes of his tone
throughout are modesty and amiability--but that does him down: he tells his story with great lucidity,
occasional shafts of humour and a decently restrained note of anthropological curiosity. Here he observes
the crowd, for instance, waiting for a movie to begin in Cuzco:
The young caballeros, who had carefully plastered
down their oily black hair, were wearing
their very best clothes for the occasion
and preferred to stand along the walls, from
where they had a better view of the señoritas,
who nervously and self-consciously fingered
their dresses. If a young lady had the audacity
to cast a quick glance around and happened
to see the longing and lingering eyes of a
gentleman acquaintance of hers who looked
at her as a forsaken lover looks at the moon,
she would greet him with a slight nod and a
quick, nervous smile would flash over her
face, and then all the chaperones would stiffly
turn their heads like prairie owls and look at
the daring young fellow, who would finger his
best necktie and loosen his collar as if he were
choking. This is South American courting.
The poor people, chiefly men and boys, were
perched up on a wooden gallery, and from
there their bare feet were dangling down like
dummy legs in the window of a manufacturer
of artificial limbs.
Tschiffely's attention passes freely from the landscape to natural history, local customs and superstitions,
architectural relics and anything else that falls into his field of vision. He's smart and curious. Of
introspection, he gives us little. His interest in the womenfolk is of the gallant-compliment type. Yet he's not
priggish. He seeks out an opium den (he doesn't much like being stoned, he decides) and allows himself to
be taken to a brothel, where one of his story's many knife-fights breaks out.
He acquires a connoisseurial eye for shrunken heads. He isn't squeamish about the way the Bolivian cornbeer
chica is made, which begins with a team of peasants chewing up the corn and spitting it out into a
bowl; though he expresses a preference for the Panamanian version ('this is done by the girls about to be
married, whereas anybody with or without teeth does it thus in Bolivia').
Happy to turn his fists and even his guns on those he regards as rogues (among them the 'intoxicated negro'
who attacked him with a machete), he is to all the many who receive him hospitably the very spirit of
courtesy. Indeed, as he enters the final third of his journey, his own celebrity becomes the problem:
everywhere he shows up, they throw him a fiesta. Invariably desperate for a kip, he's too polite not to stay
up and be celebrated until the last drunken local passes out.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
He is amiable--and yet somewhat detached. The strongest emotional bonds he forms are not with the locals
he occasionally enlists as guides for sections of his journey, but with his horses: his reunion with his horse
Gato who, lamed, had to be sent ahead by train, mists the eye. When he witnesses the rape of a 12-year-old
Indian girl he finds it 'distasteful and revolting', but his response to animal cruelty feels visceral and
personal.
From town to town he passes, paying his respects to the local autoridades, finding his horses Mancha and
Gato what fodder he can and bunking down wherever somewhere horizontal presents itself. His saddle was
more often than not his pillow. He ate monkey, iguana, raw onions (sovereign for altitude sickness,
apparently), as well as a lot of rice, yucca, beans and tortillas (when there was anything to eat at all).
Parasites burrowed under his toes to lay eggs, little red ticks covered him, and his belt rubbed him bloodraw.
What did he have to overcome? What didn't he? Rivers in torrent, drunken locals, quicksand, vampire bats,
bandits, perilous mountain passes, altitude sickness, malaria, insects and snakes of all varieties, murders and
rapes, burning weather, freezing weather, sleep deprivation, unceasing hunger--even, at the end of his
journey, the near-fatal attentions of reckless motorists. At one point, he notes: 'Prospects for crossing
Nicaragua were none too rosy, for a revolution was centred in the very parts I had to ride through.'
A coda to the story, dropped in incidentally, is that if he hadn't lingered in Washington to give a lecture to
the National Geographic Society he and his horses would likely have been aboard the Vestris, which sank.
Doublehard--and lucky.
His stoicism is remarkable. Only in passing will he mention 'before this, I had been robbed on several
occasions'. Matter-of-factly, he reports that a malarial attack --'even the roots of my hair hurt'--is especially
beastly 'when one has to ride all day and sleep on the floor of a municipal building'. Still, on to the next
thing.
What was it all for? As I say, he's not one for reflection. But atop the Costa Rican mountain Cerro de la
Muerte, 11,500 feet above sea level, Tschiffely sits down on the ground for a cigar. It's freezing cold and the
moon illuminates the mists below. The Pacific is on one side and the Atlantic is on the other:
My thoughts wandered back to my boyhood
and to the school bench for which I had an
inborn dislike. Then I recalled some incidents
of my boisterous age and chuckled to myself.
As I tried to penetrate the infinite distance,
pictures of city life appeared before me, the
strife for wealth and fame, the hurry and
worry of mankind, some rising, others falling,
foolish pleasures, the struggle of humanity,
and then I came back to reality--where
was I?--strange coincidence. La Muerte--Death.
When the first purple streaks on the
horizon announced the arrival of a new day
I returned to the shelter to prepare coffee.
The horses followed me in hopes of something
good and, although we had none to
spare, each one received a good chunk of
unrefined sugar which they munched until
their mouths foamed and dribbled.
Leith, Sam
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Leith, Sam. "The incredible journey: Sam Leith marvels at a lone horseman's 10,000-mile ride, braving
bandits, quicksands, vampire bats and revolution in search of 'variety'." Spectator, 14 June 2014, p.
36+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A372555206/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=8d3ca960. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A372555206
The Modern Explorers
Mick Herron
Geographical.
85.9 (Sept. 2013): p60.
COPYRIGHT 2013 Circle Publishing Ltd.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/
Full Text:
THE MODERN EXPLORERS
edited by Robin Hanbury-Tenison and Robert Twigger Thames & Hudson, hb, 24.95 [pounds sterling]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
This handsome follow-up to Robin Hanbury-Tenison's The Great Explorers, gathering essays and
photography by many big names in the field, roams widely around the globe, but frequently returns to the
same question: why do we do this?
In their contributions, the explorers outline their motivations as much as their adventures. Jon Muir's reason
for his unassisted, 2.500-kilometre cross-Australia trek turns out to be that polar exploration is logistically
complex and prohibitively expensive, while it was Tashir Shah's childhood fascination with King Solomon's
mines that drew him, after years of exploring old books, to a monastery on a precipice in Ethiopia. (His
expert advice to would-be Indiana Joneses: forget hi-tech gear and corporate sponsorship--go on eBay and
score some ex-army kit. Rider Haggard would have been proud.)
Other stories are less about derring-do than human indomitability. Karen Darke pledged at the age of six to
climb El Cap, a peak in Yosemite National Park, and didn't allow an accident that left her wheelchair-bound
at 21 stop her. She regraded the climb into her own system: it was a 4.000+ pull-up ascent, in the midst of
which there was 'no up, no down, no yesterday, no tomorrow'.
But each explorer follows his or her own arc, and many have the public good at heart. Meg Lowman, riding
an airship over the rainforests of French Guiana, is hunting down cures for human diseases in the 'global
pharmacy' of the forest canopy, while Pen Hadow's aim was to advance scientific understanding of the
rapidly changing status of sea ice, collecting data through manual drilling. Each of the writers here has faced
enormous challenges. However. Hadow's terse, faultless description of how his own team overcame the
obstacles they found in their way--'We then did whatever it took'--could stand as the motto of all involved.
Herron, Mick
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Herron, Mick. "The Modern Explorers." Geographical, Sept. 2013, p. 60. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A377664690/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a377e8a3.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A377664690
The Great Explorers
Contemporary Review.
293.1701 (June 2011): p254+.
COPYRIGHT 2011 Contemporary Review Company Ltd.
Full Text:
The Great Explorers. Robin Hanbury-Tenison, editor. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling] 24.95. 304
pages. ISBN 978-0-500-25169-0. The editor, himself famed as one of the last great British explorers, praises
famous explorers as people who have 'changed the world' by changing peoples' perceptions of their world
through their discoveries and adventures. In this collection, 32 writers, explorers and academics tackle this
enormous subject by dividing it into seven fields: oceans, land, rivers, polar ice, deserts, life on earth and
'new frontiers' and under each of these headings we have a total of forty chapters that deal with individual
explorers: Columbus, Cook, de Soto, Burton, Younghusband, Livingstone, Stanley, Nansen, Amundsen,
Gertrude Bell, Thesiger, von Humboldt, and Cousteau, just to mention some. The period covered dates from
1500 to the present. The contributions, helped by a splendid assortment of illustrations, are all well written
and the learning displayed is so arranged to excite the reader's interests even further. As the editor points
out, when it comes to outer space, we are as we were in 1500 but on a wider and deeper scale. (J.T.D.R.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Great Explorers." Contemporary Review, June 2011, p. 254+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A266751083/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e4181d08.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A266751083
The Great Explorers
Mick Herron
Geographical.
82.10 (Oct. 2010): p66.
COPYRIGHT 2010 Circle Publishing Ltd.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/
Full Text:
THE GREAT EXPLORERS
edited by Robin Hanbury-Tenison
THAMES & HUDSON, HB, 24.95 [pounds sterling]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Without our curiosity, we would all have stayed at home. With this disarming apercu, Robin HanburyTenison
introduces a beautifully illustrated volume of biographical essays, covering explorers of world
renown--Magellan, Mungo Park, Stanley, Livingstone and others--alongside some (to this reviewer,
anyway) less familiar names.
These include Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, mathematician and soldier, who made the first successful
French circumnavigation of the globe (with a crew including at least one woman pretending to be a man),
and Ney Elias, whose field of operations was Central Asia. If that name isn't immediately recognisable,
that's largely because unlike some of his contemporaries, Elias shunned publicity. His first expeditions were
along the Yellow River, 'which had just gone through one of its periodic gyrations and altered course': an
appropriate change of direction, given that Elias himself first went east in the service of commerce, although
was later to become a spy, monitoring Russian interests in India.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Those brief lives fall under the headings of 'Oceans' and 'Land' respectively; the book's other sections take in
rivers, polar ice, deserts and life on Earth, coming enterprisingly up-to-the-minute with a piece by
underground explorer Andrew James Eavis, currently working on the China Caves Project. 'The golden age
of cave exploration may well be yet to come,' he concludes, holding out the hope of future volumes
dedicated to this fascinating area. Hanbury-Tenison provides elegant essays linking the separate sections,
but Thames & Hudson might have given the authors' names a little more prominence.
Herron, Mick
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Herron, Mick. "The Great Explorers." Geographical, Oct. 2010, p. 66. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A246012565/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ee638476.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A246012565
Land of Eagles: Riding Through Europe's
Lost Country
Robert Carver
Geographical.
81.7 (July 2009): p63.
COPYRIGHT 2009 Circle Publishing Ltd.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/
Full Text:
LAND OF EAGLES: Riding through Europe's Lost Country
by Robin Hanbury-Tenison
IB TAURIS, HB, 19.99 [pounds sterling]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Crossing Albania on horseback, even supported by four-wheel-drive back-up, isn't to be undertaken lightly.
Robin Hanbury-Tenison's aim is to improve the low reputation of the country and people, thus encouraging
tourism. He printed leaflets explaining this mission, which, together with 'cheap pashminas for the women
and mittens for the children' are doled out by his wife Louella, while wind-up torches are distributed to the
men by the author - these, as he helpfully explains, 'of course, do not require batteries'.
We're clearly in darkest Albania, despite the mobile phones and stolen Mercedes. Hanbury-Tenison's
military maps are from the 1950s; his guides speak virtually no English and he no Albanian; there are no
natural north-south routes due to the mountainous terrain. They often get lost, meet many grasping and
hostile locals, and hear sinister gunfire in the hills--and frequently, the Albanian back-up team does
absolutely nothing to help. Many of the men they meet are drunk, truculent and possibly Mafiosi: as the
couple progress with much difficulty, an aura of gritted teeth and choked-back exasperation increasingly
rises from the pages.
Hanbury-Tenison is an old-school, upper-crust pukka sahib, not interested in the Albanians except as guides,
porters or picturesque background. He talks to no locals about anything other than what he wants them to
do. This is an incurious and decidedly Victorian, imperial narrative; Louella and the natives remaining mute
throughout. Albania and its people are presented as a series of problems that the author wishes to get away
from as quickly as possible. Much historical library research is rehashed as padding, and the only humour is
unintentional, as the innocents abroad stumble from one predicament to the next like the naive protagonists
of an early Evelyn Waugh novel.
This is a classic case of misplaced expedition mentality, which imposes an unsuitable plan of action on a
country, then bashes on regardless through self-made problems. Albania is not, in fact, a difficult country
through which to travel, if you do things the local way, which the Hanbury-Tenisons don't: all their pratfalls
are their own fault. The author's stated credo is 'to look at what was good and interesting and not get
involved in controversy'. As a result, he ignores the most interesting question of all: why is Albania so
lawless?
Carver, Robert
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Carver, Robert. "Land of Eagles: Riding Through Europe's Lost Country." Geographical, July 2009, p. 63.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A203532360/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=19012803. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A203532360
Wilful destruction of a world wonder
Robin Hanbury-Tenison
Spectator.
306.9374 (Apr. 26, 2008): p35.
COPYRIGHT 2008 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
http://www.spectator.co.uk
Full Text:
TREE OF RIVERS: THE STORY OF THE AMAZON by John Hemming Thames & Hudson, 20 [pounds
sterling], pp. 368, ISBN 9780670915804 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p)
0870 429 6655
This is the 'Compleat History of the Amazon': everything you ever wanted to know about the biggest and
most important environment left on earth, and it's a rattling good yarn at the same time. The spread of
subjects and themes is as wide and diverse as the geographical area itself. It ranges from ethical issues--
man's inhumanity to man and the gratuitous destruction of priceless species and ecosystems--to the riveting
history of those who discovered, exploited, plundered, studied, fell in love with and then, through insatiable
greed, brought to its knees the richest culmination of all that nature could achieve.
John Hemming has the rare gift of interpreting wide and complex subjects for the lay reader. His writing is
always elegant and interesting, every page full of fascinating information. Those who thought they knew a
thing or two about the Amazon will have their eyes opened repeatedly to new, astonishing facts about the
region; while those who have never been there will learn what a supremely captivating and significant place
it is in so many different ways. By far the largest river in the world, it discharges one fifth of all the planet's
fresh water and nourishes within its vast basin at least the same proportion of most forms of life on earth;
one third of all species when it comes to freshwater fish.
We all identify the Amazon with its indigenous inhabitants, and no one is better qualified than the author to
describe the history of one of the world's most oppressed peoples. The gratuitous horrors inflicted on them
over the last 500 years exceed any of the other terrible holocausts. A population of about five million people
living in perfect harmony with their environment (about the same population as there were in Africa at the
same time) was reduced by unimaginable savagery to a bare 200,000, a genocide which started from the first
moment of conquest and continued well into the 20th century. Hemming manages to convey these horrors
graphically and with clinical accuracy, yet without succumbing either to sensationalism or sentimentality.
His intimate and encyclopaedic knowledge of Brazil's Indian tribes leaves no room to doubt that what he
describes is true: the frenzied savagery with which, for conquest or for greed, these gentle people were
tortured almost to extinction. At first, it was a deliberate policy by the colonists to eliminate the original
inhabitants; later, driven by the world's greatest boom, the wild rubber bonanza at the end of the 19th
century, unbridled savagery was unleashed against them, when it became routine to flog a man or woman to
death for failing to deliver enough latex. The faded pictures from that era contrast powerfully with the
pristine images in colour and black and white of both man and nature still undefiled.
And the same treatment was meted out to the natural world. Fabulous bounty was squandered with an
apparently compulsive profligacy. I was particularly horrified by the account of the destruction of the great
river turtles, which were described in 1870, when mating, as lining the water's edge in rows eight or ten
deep, the clashing of their shells being heard for miles. Up to five million eggs were destroyed every year,
their rich oil used for cooking 'and to light rich families' chandeliers'. Now they are an endangered species.
This compares with what was done to the cod of the Grand Banks in more recent times. And, of course,
today's destruction, once more for short term profit from timber or soya, is of the forest itself. Will we never
learn?
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Many people have fallen in love with the Amazon and been inspired by its richness and beauty. The world's
preeminent natural scientists, like Humboldt, Wallace and Bates spent years studying and collecting, and
their accounts reveal the diversity of the place and the excitement of discovery, as well as the hardship and
danger of life there. One of my favourites is the naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton (1782-1865),
'Britain's first eco-warrior and its first genuine lover of tropical forests'. His bestselling book, Waterton's
Wanderings in South America, was full of lyrical descriptions, as well as high adventure. When telling of
wrestling with a large cayman (crocodile) and riding it like a horse, he explains that he was able to keep his
seat because 'I hunted some years with Lord Darlington's fox hounds'.
John Hemming's passion for the great forests and the people of Amazonia shines through this book. His
command of the subject, based on intense and meticulous research, enhanced by a lifetime of direct
experience through many expeditions, makes him the most qualified author to have written this definitive
work. He has done his subject proud.
Robin Hanbury-Tenison is President of Survival International which helps tribal peoples protect their
livelihoods and determine their own futures. www.survivalinternational.org
Hanbury-Tenison, Robin
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Hanbury-Tenison, Robin. "Wilful destruction of a world wonder." Spectator, 26 Apr. 2008, p. 35. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A178413585/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a6a5aa57. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A178413585
The Seventy Great Journeys in History
Margaret Atwater-Singer
Library Journal.
132.1 (Jan. 1, 2007): p125.
COPYRIGHT 2007 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
The Seventy Great Journeys in History. Thames & Hudson, dist. by Norton. 2006. c.304p. ed. by Robin
Hanbury-Tenison. illus. maps. index. ISBN 0-500-25129-0 [ISBN 978-0-500-25129-4]. $40. HIST
Copiously illustrated and lavishly crafted, this book, edited by explorer and conservationist HanburyTenison
(Oxford Book of Exploration), is a fine companion volume to the other "Seventy Great" titles (e.g.,
Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, Battles of All Time). Journeys deemed to have had an "epic quality,"
determined leadership, and a lasting impact on the world were selected for inclusion. Mongol conqueror
Genghis Khan, American aviator Amelia Earhart, the Trail of Tears (the forced relocation of the Cherokee
Native Americans to the western United States), and the Apollo space missions are some of the figures and
journeys detailed. Divided into six sections--"Ancient World," "Medieval World," "Renaissance," "17th &
18th Centuries," "19th Century," and "Modern Times"--and 70 chapters, the book offers condensed
narratives containing facts about the expeditions, information about the explorers and their motivations,
specially commissioned maps, and 420 well-captioned photographs and illustrations, 331 of them in color.
Resources for further reading appear before the index. More than 50 authors contributed to the volume, and
brief biographies of each are included. Given this work's breadth, scope, and quality, public libraries will
want to consider purchase.--Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN
Atwater-Singer, Margaret
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Atwater-Singer, Margaret. "The Seventy Great Journeys in History." Library Journal, 1 Jan. 2007, p. 125.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A158523703/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=06154f66. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A158523703
A desert as dangerous as ever
Jeremy Swift
Spectator.
300.9259 (Jan. 21, 2006): p49.
COPYRIGHT 2006 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
http://www.spectator.co.uk
Full Text:
WORLDS WITHIN: REFLECTIONS IN THE SAND by Robin Hanbury-Tenison Long Riders'Guild Press,
11.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 284, ISBN 1590481623
Exploration has come a long way since the Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang visited India and central Asia in
the seventh century AD, returning to warn about biting winds and fierce dragons in the Gobi. His advice for
future visitors was don't wear red garments or carry loud calabashes. 'The least forgetfulness of these
precautions entails certain misfortune.' Red rags clearly annoyed dragons.
Until the early 20th century, exploration was largely driven and funded by missionary zeal, scientific
curiosity and the search for natural resources. Early explorers were employed to stake claims to the
imagined fabulous cities of Africa or the gold of the Americas. European rulers sent explorer monks to
enquire into rumours of Prester John and a lost Christian empire in central Asia (or India, or Ethiopia,
nobody was very sure). The coasts of the Americas, Africa and Asia were known early on because they
could be reached by ship. The interiors of the great continents remained obscure for longer, but were
described in detail by the late 19th century. The Royal Geographic Society, created in 1830, gave
momentum to this work.
By the middle of the 20th century, exploration in the traditional sense had achieved all its potential. The
physical world was mapped and largely known, and the independent traveller, even with the benefit of
satellite images, geographic positioning systems, and all the other modern travellers' toys, could no longer
so easily return home with new and surprising information about strange customs, new plants or half-buried
cities.
Deprived of its traditional subject matter, exploration mutated. A Guinness Book of Records variant sees
people inventing ever more demanding and absurd tasks: fastest to the North Pole on one foot, or crossing
the Sahara in a wind-powered wheelbarrow. The RGS, now the doyen of scientific exploration societies, has
encouraged the emergence of expeditionary science, or scientific survey work done in remote places, often
in difficult conditions. Robin Hanbury-Tenison has been closely linked to the RGS and a powerful force
behind this evolution. He has himself travelled widely, and although not a scientist has encouraged the
RGS's new direction. Hanbury-Tenison is best known as one of the founders of Survival International, an
organisation which acts on behalf of tribal people. Survival was the first to focus attention on the shameful
situation of such peoples, and now campaigns on their behalf.
Worlds Within is Hanbury-Tenison's account of a short journey by camel in the Sahara, interspersed with
reflections on his travels and his own life. He was accompanied by four Twareg guides, and clearly enjoyed
their company. His strength is to recognise that his companions are real people with an intimate knowledge
of the life contained in the apparently barren landscape they cross. In this account, his guides are at the
centre of the story, in a more convincing way than most accounts of travel in remote places.
Much of the Sahara was until the 20th century inaccessible to outsiders, and indeed to desert nomads
themselves outside their own territories. From the completion of French colonisation in the 1920s until the
early 1990s, it was generally quite a safe place for travellers. But wars, banditry and developing Islamic
radicalism have made parts of the desert as dangerous again as it ever was. Hanbury-Tenison was in an area-north-eastern
Niger--which had been the site of an inconclusive civil war between the Twareg and the
government in the 1990s. His account brings to life the way the desert is now peopled not only by nomads
but also by bandits, smugglers and desperate migrant workers, crossing the vast uninhabited spaces in
exhausted vehicles, at times even on foot.
Hanbury-Tenison is more confident about the future of the Saharan Twareg than that of many of the peoples
supported by Survival. This book shows why. Although it is about the author himself, written as a personal
reflection on a life of exploration, the stars of his account are the guides, knowledgeable and funny, putting
up with another foreigner eager to experience the desert more fully than is possible from a hired vehicle.
Hanbury-Tenison reverses the usual pattern: writing about himself more honestly than most travellers, he in
fact gives centre stage to his guides and companions. He may not have meant to do this, but it is to his credit
that his instincts led to such an outcome.
Swift, Jeremy
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Swift, Jeremy. "A desert as dangerous as ever." Spectator, 21 Jan. 2006, p. 49. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A141801787/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=2c933eaa.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A141801787
A short walk into history
Nick Smith
Geographical.
78.1 (Jan. 2006): p4.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Circle Publishing Ltd.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/
Full Text:
By the time Eric Newby set off in 1956 on an expedition across Central Asia that was to be immortalised in
his book A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, he was already on the road to literary fame. His earlier book, The
Great Grain Race, had met with critical acclaim and he was fast gaining a reputation as a travel writer of
considerable talent--William Dalrymple recently ventured the opinion that Newby 'virtually invented' travel
writing as we know it today.
It follows, then, that it's a shame that A Short Walk--for all its narrative drive, lightness of touch and felicity
of phrasing--is known chiefly for the final couple of pages where Newby and his travel companion Hugh
Carless meet the legendary explorer Wilfred Thesiger, deep in the mountains.
This meeting is reproduced in this issue by permission of Newby himself, who is interviewed by the
explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison (50 years after his short walk, page 60). And if ever Thesiger's influence
was in doubt, he crops up again more than four decades later in another feature in this issue, this time in
Justin Marozzi's account of his crossing of the Libyan Sahara by camel (Slave routes across the Sahara, page
40). Before setting off on this journey, Marozzi consulted with the Great Man, then in his 80s. You can't
help wondering how many others benefitted from his wisdom.
nick@geographical.co.uk
Smith, Nick
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Smith, Nick. "A short walk into history." Geographical, Jan. 2006, p. 4. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A148717195/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ee413534.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A148717195
Worlds Within
Frankie Mullin
Geographical.
77.11 (Nov. 2005): p80.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Circle Publishing Ltd.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/
Full Text:
Worlds Within by Robin Hanbury-Tenison The Long Riders Guild, hb, pp284, 19.99 [pounds sterling]
This is Robin Hanbury-Tenison's account of two journeys: his trek across the Sahara with a group of Tuareg
tribesmen and an exploration of himself as he escapes the "chatter of the universe".
Seeking solitude in the desert dunes, Hanbury-Tenison reflects upon a life that has, among other things,
earned him the Patron's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). The fact that much of
Worlds Within takes place in Niger--and is one of the few books on that country published this year--adds a
sad topicality in view of the unfolding humanitarian tragedy in the region.
Hanbury-Tenison's 40-day expedition across the Sahara by camel provides the right mix of exotic location
and gruelling conditions for some great armchair travelling. Equally gripping are his recollections of
explorations past, including riding the length of the Great Wall of China and making the first land crossing
of South America at its widest point.
Hanbury-Tenison's life seems to have been driven by a deep-rooted enthusiasm for people, which has gained
him acceptance and friendship across the globe. After living with indigenous communities in Brazil, he
helped to found Survival International, the charity established to support tribal communities around the
world. Having spent many months living in the rainforests of Indonesia and South America, HanburyTenison
has played a central role in the establishment of the movement to stop their destruction. However,
his most recent campaigning has been to establish the Countryside Alliance, which he describes as his first
proper job.
This book combines a travel diary with a tale of an amazing life, and Hanbury-Tenison writes with such
passion and enthusiasm that it's difficult not to feel the stirrings of adventure in oneself.
Mullin, Frankie
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Mullin, Frankie. "Worlds Within." Geographical, Nov. 2005, p. 80. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A138394830/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d57aee05.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A138394830
More Tales from the Travellers
Mick Herron
Geographical.
77.10 (Oct. 2005): p80.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Circle Publishing Ltd.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/
Full Text:
More Tales from the Travellers edited by Frank Herrmann and Michael Allen Michael Tomkinson, hb,
pp282, 18.99 [pounds sterling]
If the point of an anthology is to do what it says on the cover, More Tales from the Travellers is an
exemplary production. It is being precisely that: a collection of anecdotes and reminiscences of Travellers
Club members, kicking off in dazzlingly erudite fashion with Patrick Leigh Fermor's 60th-anniversary
address and taking in tales of hardship, travel, humour and titbits from the end of Empire.
English schooling is arranged for two spoilt and borderline psychopathic sons of an emir; parades are shot
up by disaffected policemen; Foreign Office rules on receipt of expensive gifts are invoked more than once.
Shimon Peres and King Hussein of Jordan help with the washing-up. Chris Bonington provides welcome
advice on the correct number for an expedition (four, so you can play bridge when the weather's bad), while
Robin Hanbury-Tenison encounters bandits on the edge of the Hindu Kush and later derivers a bouquet to
an unknown beauty by hot-air balloon.
Pleasant, undemanding stuff, but it's hard not to feel that a different set of perspectives might have been
reached if female voices could be heard in the clubroom.
Herron, Mick
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Herron, Mick. "More Tales from the Travellers." Geographical, Oct. 2005, p. 80. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A137351429/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9cbdd615.
Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A137351429
The Oxford Book of Exploration (second
edition)
Nick Smith
Geographical.
77.7 (July 2005): p84.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Circle Publishing Ltd.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/
Full Text:
The Oxford Book of Exploration (second edition) edited by Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Oxford University
Press, pb, pp576, 16.99 [pounds sterling]
The key thing for a new edition of any reference work is that it should be no worse than the edition it
replaces. In the case of Robin Hanbury-Tenison's Oxford Book of Exploration, the editorial content
surpasses the original quietly and confidently. In terms of presentation, however, it falls well short of the
mark.
When The Oxford Book of Exploration first appeared in 1993, it was correctly hailed as a modern
geographical classic. And although it's clear that Hanbury-Tenison has done a lot of work to modernise and
update the book, he has wisely taken the view that 'if it ain't broke, you don't fix it.'
The new edition sees the welcome addition of new material contributions from the likes of John Hemming,
Andy Eavis and a variety of other Geographical stalwarts. However, in truth, this is an anthology of
broadsides from
big guns such as Scott, Livingstone, Cook, Cabot and Thesiger, interspersed with rare gems from HanburyTenison's
frighteningly detailed (and possibly unrivalled) knowledge of the entire canon of the literature of
exploration.
Perhaps surprisingly for such a distinguished explorer, Hanbury Tenison admits in his introductory essay to
the new edition that he is becoming increasingly suspicious of what the notion of exploration now means in
the modern world, as well as having doubts about the methods and means of his predecessors. "Few of the
great explorers were the first people to get to where they were going," he writes, "although they often fail to
mention those who showed them the way. Often they were perfidious, shooting the welcoming natives
without warning."
It's gripping stuff. Which is more than can be said for the production of the book itself, which has more in
common with a trashy airport novel than a reference work that should be gracing library shelves for decades
to come. Poorly bound and printed on cheap paper, this is a far cry from the first edition that's sitting on my
desk. Clothbound, hardbacked and stitched, it's nigh-on indestructable and, with gold block lettering,
attractive too. To be sure, this quality came at a price--17.95 [pounds sterling] to be exact. So, for a mere
96p less, you can replace your current copy with something that will fall apart in a trice. A poor fate indeed
for a great work of geographical scholarship. Nick Smith
Smith, Nick
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Smith, Nick. "The Oxford Book of Exploration (second edition)." Geographical, July 2005, p. 84. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A133810077/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c272f222. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A133810077
Worlds apart: an explorer's life
Dennis Drabelle
Smithsonian.
15 (Nov. 1984): p227+.
COPYRIGHT 1984 Smithsonian Institution
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/
Full Text:
Worlds Apart: An Explorer's Life
One of the most valuable services that a nonfiction book can perform is to get the reader thinking about a
human problem in a new way. Worlds Apart, British explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison's latest, does exactly
that. The problem is the perennial destruction of primitive societies by civilized ones, and Tenison's
rhetorical contribution to the debate is to tot up the numbers--he counts nearly 200 million people, "or about
five per cent of the world's population [as] still isolated from the mainstream of modern life'--and to
characterize the result innovatively: "Together they constitute the largest minority in the world.'
Tenison's first encounters with peoples like the Yanomami of Brazil, the Penan of Malaysia, and the Tuaregs
of Libya were largely accidental--interludes in such grandiose larks as the first vehicular crossing of South
America at its widest point (1958). Gradually, however, this youngest son of landed gentry, a graduate of
Eton and Oxford, came to admire the self-sufficient hunter-gatherers still among us and to resent the efforts
of greedy settlers and smug missionaries to dispossess them, to shame them into donning clothes, planting
fields and praying to Jesus.
Tenison did not let himself become an infatuated romantic. Of an Indonesian tribe called the Dani, he writes:
"There was certainly room for an infusion of the milk of human kindness into their way of life since some of
their traditional practices --such as cutting off fingers whenever anyone died, their methods of abortion,
punishment and revenge--seemed unnecessarily crude and cruel.' But he urges example, not belittlement or
force, as the proper method of infusion. And he deplores the arrogant assumption that "plastic modernity' is
superior to a culture like the Yanomami, who had occupied their territory for roughly 15,000 years.
Tenison's practical response to the cultural onslaughts he has witnessed was to found an organization,
Survival International, "that aims to deflect the destructive influence of "civilized' society.' The goal is not to
perpetuate primitive tribes' isolation--that would be impossible--but to equip them with enough savvy for
self-defense and, where necessary, to intercede with government agencies on their behalf. The Yanomami
themselves have become something of a success story. In 1982, thanks in part to the advocacy of Survival
International, the Brazilian government preliminarily set aside an extensive area for their protection.
Worlds Apart harbors certain amount of advocacy itself, but Tenison is never preachy or knee-jerk. He
distinguishes "good' missionaries from "bad' (Catholics consistently get higher marks for sensitivity to other
cultures than Protestants) and never lets polemics overwhelm his appetite for adventure. He is proud, for
example, of being among the few outsiders to have seen the anoa, a small species of wild buffalo found only
on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. He is also a fluent, evocative writer, particularly when describing the
rain forests that he loves.
Still, in the end it is Tenison's message that dominates his book. In an impassioned but not strident section of
the Yanomami chapter, he contrasts their indifference to possessions with most of humanity's scramble after
affluence. "This is why I believe that [the Yanomami] and people like them matter more than those who
would displace them on their land. Not because any one human life is more valuable than any other, but
because some societies, through their viability and the hope they can give to a desperate world which sees
its own extinction as dangerously imminent, deserve to survive so that the species may survive.'
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Drabelle, Dennis. "Worlds apart: an explorer's life." Smithsonian, Nov. 1984, p. 227+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A3497516/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ee39eb38. Accessed
5 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A3497516