Benedict Allen defends not taking phone or GPS on Papua New Guinea expedition: 'I'm an expert in survival'

The explorer Benedict Allen has defended his decision to set off into the Papua New Guinea jungle without any means to contact the outside world by saying: “I’m an expert in survival.”

The 57-year-old British explorer was evacuated by helicopter from a remote airstrip last week, after falling ill with malaria.

He had missed a scheduled flight to Hong Kong, and his family feared he had been attacked by drug dealers or other “bad people”.

Mr Allen did not take a satellite phone or GPS module on his expedition to contact the Yaifo tribe.

Defending his choice during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said exploring is “not about asserting yourself or imposing yourself, it’s about the opposite – it’s about being vulnerable, learning from the experts, and they’re the local people”.

“That means being on a level with the local people, and that means not being able to be whisked away whenever you feel like it because you feel a bit ill. I’m a professional. I’m an expert in survival,” he added.

His greatest worry about not having a phone was being out of contact in the event one of his children suffered an accident back home in London, he said.

Mr Allen said he was “slightly bewildered” by the attention his plight had generated, and argued that it was not a publicity stunt.

He said he filmed the entire trip. “You can see me deteriorating with malaria; there was clear footage of me, and perhaps the worst moment of all was when I had to read, or say to the camera, ‘Look, if you don’t find me and you just find this footage, please take it along to the embassy.’ ... I showed photos of my children.” he said.

Speaking from west London, he said “massive” storms had swept away a key bridge and soaked his anti-malarial tablets. A tribal war also meant he could not proceed as planned.

Broadcaster Ben Fogle told the programme: “In 2017, I think with the technology that we have, it’s a bit foolhardy to head off without a GPS, without a satellite phone, and to put your family through the stress and worry.”

Afua Hirsch, a writer and broadcaster, said trips like Mr Allen’s were ”troubling”, and that she saw “a real continuity” between coverage of it and the language used by colonial-era expeditions.

She said: ”This isn’t about the individual motives of people that go off to seek contact with hitherto uncontactable people. This is about a system and a context.

“For centuries, if you look at the history of explorers and the genre of explorer writing and adventure telling, it is often to find black and other non-white ethnic groups, cultures and people – and treat them in the same way as they would treat an exotic species of plant or wildlife.

“It’s this gaze that regards the European as the civilised person who travels around, exposing the exotic in other parts of the world, that I think is troubling.

“If you look back at some of the adventure writing from the 15th and 16th century that described ‘savages’, the word that was often used, I see a real continuity with some of the language and the press coverage around explorers today.

“That’s not to say that individual explorers are trying to be racist in any way.”