James Levelle – Keynote Speaker

James Levelle is an adventurer and filmmaker. His award-winning films have not only taken him to some of the most extreme environments on the planet, they demonstrate the power of film and its potential to change people’s perspectives.

‘Free Ride’, Levelle’s most daring and ambitious adventure yet was an audacious attempt to cross the continent of South America – ten weeks, six countries and over 10,000km – without a mobile phone, no credit card, no money whatsoever.

His career in film kicked off in 2007 when international NGO, Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), sent Levelle to document child labour in India’s cotton fields and then to war-torn West Africa to capture deadly pirate fisherman off the coast of Sierra Leone.

He went on to direct the acclaimed Eco Crime Investigators series for National Geographic, going undercover in China and Tibet to expose the criminal trade in tiger skins and bone, and then taking on the lethal multi-million pound illegal logging industry in Southeast Asia.