Dave Hansford - photographer, writer and environmental campaigner, now calls the Wairarapa home.

Since turning freelance, after 14 years as a press photographer for the Dominion Post, Dave has racked up an impressive list of published credits. He regularly appears in National Geographic and NZ Geographic as well as a slew of NZ and Australian travel and nature publications. He has written for the New Zealand Listener, has a regular column in Sustainable Living Good magazine and can be seen on Good Morning TV as its environment spokesman.

His interest in photography was sparked by a clash with an art teacher back in his school days in Auckland.

“When I was a kid I was really into painting. I took art classes and in the fifth form I had the most dreadful art teacher who I fell out with in the first week of the very first term. I swore I’d never go back to one of her art classes and so spent every subsequent art class in the school library and that’s where I picked up National Geographic and saw the most amazing photographs.

“It just so happened that the library was the meeting place for the school camera club. It just took root almost vicariously and I bought my first instamatic! I’ve been taking photos ever since.“

This lack of formal training has been no barrier to a highly accomplished career, documenting in words and pictures the wonders of the natural world.

Dave’s career started, however, in one of our most urban environments.

“My first newspaper was in South Auckland. The very week I started we had the Otara machete murders, which was my first assignment! They were great days though, South Auckland was a really hard place to work in many ways but the stories were fantastic.

“That’s where I learned that city suburbs are full of heroes doing wonderful things for their fellow human beings for little or no recognition. Life is hard in South Auckland, and I think that’s what set me on the path to being a leftie actually. I became a political animal somewhere around that time! “

Despite the challenges of shooting in the urban jungle, an early interest in nature continued to ferment.

“That is still a mystery to me, all in know is I was into animals and wildlife as early as I can remember. I’ve still got photos I took with an instamatic in zoos when I was about seven or eight.”

Dave is a passionate advocate for environmental action. So is reporting on the environment a depressing task given the rate at which we despoil it?

“What gives me cause for hope is right here on our doorstep. Right here in Featherston there are groups looking after their own backyard – their own little patch of reserve. Over the hill in Wellington, I think at last count there were well over 60 community groups. Every single park, reserve or stream has its own care group. “

Dave is, however, a bitter critic of New Zealand’s overall environmental record.

“100 per cent pure? I reckon we’d come in at around 30 per cent pure. The fact we only topped four million people a few years back is the only reason this place isn’t any more trashed than it is.

“We’ve lost half of our bird species, most of our wetlands, much of our lowland forest and our water is increasingly polluted. When you consider there weren’t many people around to do that, our impact has been severe.”

The Wairarapa has held an allure for Dave since he first moved to Wellington in the early nineties.

“I enjoy mountain biking and tramping so I know the Tararuas and the Rimutaka very well and I love the Wairarapa coast.

“The whole natural world fascinates me; whether it’s constellations or an earthworm. I just find wonder wherever I look. The way it works is inspirational – that’s why it really grieves me that we hurt it so much.”