Going behind the scenes and getting techie!

When our campaigners are out in the field tackling environmental crime their trips are supported by essential staff in our London Office. Jamie Elkins, Visuals and Equipment Co-ordinator – EIA’s answer to ‘Q’ – gives us an insight into the ‘techie’ side of the organisation.

“Back when EIA began, campaigners often struggled with ‘covert’ campaigns when having to film with a camera 3 times the size of the bag it was hidden in!

At EIA we pride ourselves at having the best (and most cost-effective) equipment, to get an often tricky job done. I’m currently in the process of compiling a list of the latest in stills, video and tracking equipment.  It’s great, like something from ‘The Gadget Show’ and I will be exciting the pants off everyone with new equipment at our next Campaigns meeting!

Keeping track of equipment being taken on field trips can be a time consuming and confusing task (for campaigners!) so I am now working on an innovative bar code system which will streamline this process completely. It’ll be like shopping at a supermarket’s self-service till from now on.

EIA has over 30,000 still images and many these are in old formats so we are in the process of digitizing them so they are more readily available for staff and researchers.  I am currently redesigning the digital library to incorporate them. Looking through all the old slides it’s great to see that the staff’s fashion sense hasn’t changed much since the 80’s!”