James has spent much of his career in documentary, news and multimedia production and founded an independent production company specialising in social, political and environmental documentaries and factual programs. He has produced and directed television programs for broadcasters such as the ABC, Al Jazeera English, SBS and France 4. He has led media and community development projects and trainings for indigenous groups, NGO's and government agencies. He has a masters in science communications (natural history filmmaking) from Flinders University in South Australia and a degree in media and communications from Otago University in New Zealand. James previously worked as a communications specialist at CIFOR and is now based in Jakarta with the Indonesia-Australia Forest Carbon Partnership