About Adrian
Adrian Beckingham has worked in environmental education since the 1980s.
In 1987 he won the Newcastle Herald English Prize for attaining first place in the study of English Literature at Newcastle University, Australia.
His roles have included being National Co-ordinator of Greenpeace Australia's Membership Response Unit (with a paid campaign team of 180 staff).
This role put him at the cutting edge of the fragile
inter-relationship between the Earth and its inhabitants - and the need for urgent action to counter the culture of environmental destruction. He has also spent time in the United States working on behalf of Greenpeace USA.
Since 1994 he has been based in the UK, during which time he has studied indigenous cultures at degree level, and worked closely with indigenous peoples around the world and their representatives. He was one of the first people to begin using storytelling to address contemporary issues in modern society.
Under the name of The Man From Story Mountain, he uses traditional stories of indigenous peoples to focus on sustainable use of earth's resources and community living. In 1996 he began a series of community storytelling projects entitled Stories That Crafted The Earth - a project which continues to this day teaching young people the benefits of recognising value in their own lives through the teachings of cultures which at first seem radically different to our own. He has received many international storytelling commissions for his work, among these being sponsors such as The Commonwealth Institute, The Millennium Commission, English Heritage, and The Duke Of Edinburgh Award. His commissions as a storyteller have taken him to countries as diverse as the United Kingdom, Australia, Bali, and Egypt and he was uniquely invited as a storyteller to the world's largest literary festival, Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. Apart from his work as a storyteller, Adrian is also a teacher of storytelling and creative writing in colleges, community centres and schools.
