Hanbury-Tenison, (Airling) Robin (1936– )

Irish adventurer, explorer, and writer who made the first land crossing of South America at its widest point in 1958. In 1969 he became chair of Survival International, an organization campaigning for the rights of threatened tribal peoples.

He explored the southern Sahara intermittently 1962–66, and in South America sailed in a small boat from the Orinoco River to Buenos Aires 1964–65. After expeditions to Ecuador, Brazil, and Venezuela, he rode across France 1984 and along the Great Wall of China 1986.

Publications include The Rough and the Smooth (1969), A Question of Survival (1973), A Pattern of Peoples (1975), Worlds Apart (1984), and A Ride along the Great Wall (1987). He participated in expeditions to Indonesia and was leader of the Royal Geographic Society Mulu (Sarawak) Expedition 1977–78.