Tim Jarvis AM

About Tim

Tim Jarvis AM is a British-Australian environmental scientist, explorer and documentary filmmaker with one of the most distinctive expedition records in the world. He has walked to both the South and North Poles — setting the fastest unsupported journey to the Geographic South Pole in 1999, in 47 days and over 1,580 km, and crossing 400 km of Arctic Ocean ice on an unsupported expedition in 2002 — and, most remarkably, re-enacted Ernest Shackleton's 1916 Antarctic survival journey using only the equipment available in Shackleton's era: no GPS, no modern insulation, no safety net. The 2013 feat was documented in the film Shackleton: Death or Glory. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2010 for service to conservation and the environment, and was named South Australia's Australian of the Year in 2024. He is a Yale World Fellow and an adviser to the Pew Foundation and WWF.

Jarvis's work sits at an intersection that few speakers occupy: the collision of elite physical endeavour with urgent environmental science. He has not simply had adventures — he has used them deliberately, as a platform to make the case for environmental protection in language that bypasses cynicism and reaches people at a visceral level. His advisory work with Pew, Patagonia and WWF reflects the seriousness with which the conservation world takes that approach.

For sustainability conferences, corporate ESG forums, leadership retreats and government strategy events, Tim Jarvis brings an authority that combines personal courage with scientific credibility. He does not deliver lectures about climate anxiety. He shows audiences what is at stake by taking them, through his own experience, to the places most people will never see — and makes the case for protecting them with the conviction of someone who has staked his life on being there.