David Key – BA (Hons), Cert. Adult Teaching (NZ), M.Sc (Human Ecology), FCHE

Born in 1967 and raised in the heart of the Derbyshire Peak District, Dave is a hugely experienced strategic and group facilitator; he has designed and run dozens of outdoor/wilderness based educational and training programmes for companies, organisations, charities and individuals, in New Zealand and Europe. Dave’s work has a reputation for challenging the deeply-seated cultural and personal assumptions that hold many of us in unsustainable, inequitable and unhealthy lifestyles.

After studying Design at the University of Northumbria, David started his career as a marketing consultant in London but, following a personal epiphany while rock climbing in Yosemite, he decided to dedicate his life to ecology and outdoor education. He studied Deep Ecology at the renowned Schumacher College with the late Arne Naess. For several years he designed and led outdoor-based leadership development programmes at the New Zealand National Outdoor Training Centre and undertook staff training at Outward Bound NZ. On returning to the UK he completed an M.Sc, with Distinction, in Human Ecology at the Centre for Human Ecology in Edinburgh, where he remains a Teaching Fellow. 

He has lectured worldwide and published numerous articles on this subject. Dave qualified as an Alpine Mountain Instructor and Rock Climbing Instructor in New Zealand and is a UK qualified Winter Mountain Leader. He's a passionate telemark skier and loves running wild rapids in his Canadian Canoe. He's also a keen sailor, cook, sometime poet, and guitarist. Dave lives in Cornwall with his partner Libby and three year old daughter, Maia.