Red Quill Society was founded to address a simple but persistent problem: environmental harm often occurs far from oversight, documentation, or accountability.
Across the world’s oceans and remote ecosystems, damage happens quietly — beyond routine monitoring, outside public view, and without reliable records. When evidence is absent or contested, responsibility becomes easy to deny.
Red Quill Society exists to close that gap.
Our work focuses on documentation, verification, and preservation of evidence so that environmental harm can be understood, addressed, and acted upon responsibly.
We are not an advocacy campaign. We are not a rapid-response media operation.
We are an investigative initiative built on discipline, accuracy, and long-term accountability.
In its early work, Red Quill Society operated through chartered vessels and collaborative field deployments to document environmental activity in remote and high-risk regions.
These missions were designed to observe and record — not intervene — and to collect evidence that could be responsibly preserved and shared with journalists, researchers, and partners when appropriate.
Operating in these environments revealed an unavoidable reality:
where environmental crime exists, resistance to documentation often follows.
In 2025, while documenting suspected illegal fishing activity within a protected marine zone, a vessel chartered for a Red Quill Society field operation was subjected to repeated hostile encounters with armed security elements associated with illicit fishing operations.
The vessel sustained severe damage and was ultimately rendered inoperable.
The crew remained safe.
The incident was not a dramatic confrontation — it was a clear operational failure.
It demonstrated that reliance on external charters in contested environments introduces unacceptable risk, not only to personnel, but to evidence, continuity, and mission integrity.
This moment reshaped Red Quill Society’s approach permanently.
This work can involve exposure to distressing material. Red Quill Society prioritises the wellbeing of contributors, communities, and team members throughout all stages of work.
Today, Red Quill Society operates with a clearly defined mandate:
- To document environmental harm accurately
- To preserve evidence responsibly
- To support accountability without spectacle
We work within ethical, legal, and journalistic standards, ensuring that evidence can withstand scrutiny and be used meaningfully by others.
We do not rush.
We do not sensationalise.
We do not compromise safety or integrity.
