Leo Plunkett is an award-winning independent British filmmaker, photographer, and video journalist who focuses on the environment and land rights.
Leo grew up in Bristol, studied music at York University, and spent several years as a filmmaker and forest guide in the Peruvian Amazon. He worked at London's Environmental Investigation Agency for three years, filming and reporting on environmental crimes in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Iceland, and many more countries. His work has won at the UN World Wildlife Day Film Awards, Wild & Scenic Film Festival, One World Media Awards and more. In 2011 he co-founded Relevant Films, an independent creative film agency based in Bristol, UK, through which he has filmed several music videos, diverse clients including Bristol City Council, Nexo, Pieminister, Norfolk Rivers Trust and a variety of commercial and television work.
He has reported extensively on forest defenders, sustainability, and conservation for nonprofits like Global Witness, the Changing Markets Foundation, and Earthsight, and his work has been featured in The Washington Post, NPR, The Independent, Upworthy, Al Jazeera, ITV, The Guardian, and more. Since 2015, he has been the lead filmmaker on The Gecko Project, an acclaimed multiplatform investigation into palm oil, corruption, and land rights in Indonesia. You can read about the project at the Nieman Lab here. Leo also regularly shoots for broadcast television and is a fully qualified drone pilot.