Source: Herald Scotland
Track Investigations have been working undercover for years to expose environmental criminalsFor 15 years they have been working undercover to expose environmental criminals around the globe, spying on wildlife smugglers, secretly filming animal abusers and infiltrating planet-trashing firms.
They have witnessed appalling cruelty, adopted numerous fake identities and sometimes put their lives in danger. In so doing they have helped put crooks behind bars, changed government policies and made many headlines.
But they have not, until now, claimed any credit.
Today, for the first time, they are emerging from the shadows to court a little publicity for their daring deeds.
Welcome to the eco-spooks – or, to give them their proper name, Tracks Investigations. They are, as they put it, “not MI5, not nine to five”, but they boast an “amazing success record.”
They don’t want to be photographed, and some of them don’t want to be named. They don’t like speaking about their current investigations, but they have just set up a website. And they’ve agreed to talk to the Sunday Herald.
Since 1995, Tracks Investigations has carried about 250 operations in scores of countries. They have exposed destruction of the Amazon rainforest, mass sheep shipments from Australia, pig cargoes trucked across Europe and the stripping of protected peatlands in the UK.
Their footage of animals being mistreated has led to slaughterhouses closing in the Middle East, cattle workers being imprisoned in Belgium and the demise of hen batteries across Europe. It was their covert surveillance that stoked the public rows in the 1990s over the long-distance transport of livestock, like veal calves in crates.
Now, with more than a dozen expert investigators, they have been commissioned by most of the major environmental groups. Their clients include Greenpeace International, Friends of the Earth, World Society for the Protection of Animals, Compassion in World Farming and Traffic, which monitors wildlife trade (see below).
Tracks Investigations was founded in 1995 by Ian S, a 44-year-old wildlife conservationist and itinerant, off-road biker from London. He felt he had to do something after discovering plans to destroy a huge tropical wetland in Brazil, known as the Pantanal, during his travels.
“I thought there was a role for investigating, exposing and getting video footage of environmental damage and animal cruelty, to give campaign groups the ammunition they need to show how those in powerful industries break the rules,” he said. “I’m pleased that we’ve managed to pull off some incredible scoops and obtained footage never seen before by using a clever mixture of camera installation, covert interviews, infiltration, surveillance and painstaking research.”
According to Ian, investigations have never involved damage to people or property. They usually kept carefully within the law and avoided entrapment in order not to prejudice possible prosecutions, though they had to be “creative in certain instances”, he admits.
On more than 50 occasions, Ian has presented himself as someone he is not, sometimes for weeks on end. He has set up false businesses, pretended to be a research student and landed several jobs with “the enemy”.
A few times, he has feared for his life. A Mexican trucker involved in the horse meat business took a dislike to being trailed, and rammed his 50-tonne vehicle into Ian’s car, severing it in two.
After being filmed throwing sheep around a pen, Italian abattoir workers chased after him brandishing their knives. Once, when Ian’s cover was blown and he was locked into a room in Kuwait by wildlife smugglers, he had to escape via a tiny window.
Sometimes, in order to maintain his cover and protect his principles, Ian has had to revert to bizarre subterfuge. After befriending the operator of a Polish pig abattoir, he and a colleague were offered a large plate of ham.
As vegans, this presented quite a dilemma. “Luckily the guy left the room, and we quickly hid the meat under potted plants, under carpets and in our socks,” he said. “I don’t know what the cleaners must have thought.”
Ian never stays in any one place for long and frequently changes his address. Although miniaturised modern surveillance technology has made his job easier, he believes target organisations are much more aware of possible attempts to bug them.
“These days you have to expect to be searched,” he said. Occasionally his investigations have unearthed no dirt, merely confirming that nobody was doing anything wrong. “It’s nice when that happens,” he admitted.
But that tends to be the exception rather than the rule. Asked if he enjoys his job, Ian insisted he did not. “I’ve seen some truly horrible things – massacres and bloodbaths,” he said. “You can’t enjoy it. But it’s important work and it’s got to be done.”
In recent years, Ian has been joined in Tracks Investigations by another eco-spook, Gem De Silva. He was an independent film and video director, and then a campaigner with the animal welfare groups, Compassion in World Farming and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.
He has investigated the international trade in monkeys and other primates, winning an award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 2008. He has also secretly filmed inside factory farms in the UK and elsewhere.
“In the depths of night we would sneak around farms with lots of heavy equipment trying to get footage and just as importantly trying not to get caught,” he said.
“I remember seeing a farmer with a shotgun on one occasion. I think we had made a bit too much noise – but luckily he went away.”
Despite knowing what to expect, De Silva was shocked by some things he found. “Nothing can really prepare you for going into these vast animal sheds. The size and scale hits you first – and then the smell.”
He is now helping to shape future investigations, and keen to share expertise. “We want to pass on our skills to those grassroots campaigners operating in the far corners of the world, who are working against environmental injustice in their own fragile communities,” he told the Sunday Herald.
One of the expert freelance operators linked to Tracks Investigations is Richard Hardy. A former campaigner with the anti-pollution group Surfers Against Sewage, in Cornwall, he now lives in Edinburgh. Sipping a coffee with soy milk in a vegetarian restaurant last week, he talked about how he and his colleagues operate.
Eco-spooks are a new breed of shy, environmental detectives, he argued. “We lift the lid off some of society’s darkest secrets and we’re happier in the shadows, behind the camera and away from the media spotlight,” he said.
“We spend months locked away in tiny offices, carrying out laborious research before being dropped into murky underworlds, which threaten the environment, animal protection or social justice.”
Like Ian S, Hardy is a vegan who has also had to make compromises with his principles to maintain his cover: it’s no good refusing to eat meat when you’re trying to gain the trust of game hunters.
But he is in no doubt about the good that can be done. “We want to continue to help organisations shock the world through the power of image as a campaigning tool to create change,” he said.
“After 15 years of undercover operations, few have achieved so much to improve the lives of so many animals, protect valuable natural habitats and help put the eco-crooks behind bars.”