David cannot recall exactly when he became ozone friendly. What he does recall contemplating things like energy efficiency long before he learned anything about Watts and Amps.

School protests in 1976 lit a spark and the next year saw him studying how to be a muckraking journalist. There the author started spending weekends rock climbing, with people who seemed to know an awful lot about stuff like plants and rocks and ecosystems. This so impressed him that he went on to study earth sciences.

More than four decades and some 20 books later, he has been fortunate to realise a long-time dream – becoming a paperback writer. Big Pharma, Dirty Lies, Busy Bees and Eco Activists is his third book in the popular Stories from the Veld series, following The Game Ranger, the Knife, the Lion and the Sheep: 20 tales about curious characters from Southern Africa and Of Hominins, Hunter-Gatherers and Heroes: Searching for 20 Amazing Places in South Africa.