Tim is an environmental scientist, author, adventurer and public speaker with Masters degrees in environmental science and environmental law. He is committed to finding pragmatic solutions to major environmental issues related to climate change and biodiversity loss. He uses his public speaking engagements, films and books about his expeditions/work to progress thinking in these areas.

He has worked in sustainability for over 25 years including 10 years as Senior sustainability adviser to global engineering firm Arup, and as sustainability adviser for multilateral aid agencies including AusAID and the World Bank amongst others. He currently provides strategic and practical sustainability advice to a range of organisations in the insurance and built environment sectors. He is Global Brand Ambassador for outdoor clothing retailer Kathmandu, Global Ambassador and Governor of environmental NGO WWF, and founder and presenter of Thin Ice VR – a film project that uses ground-breaking virtual reality to show climate change in Antarctica.

He is head of the adventure advisory panel of the Australian Geographic Society, on the Society’s advisory board, and is the current explorer in residence at the Australian Museum. Former roles include Patron of children’s charity Nature Play and board member of Zoos SA – Australia’s most conservation-focused Zoo.

Tim has undertaken unsupported expeditions to the world’s most remote regions, and has a long history of working with sponsors and the media. Expeditions include to the South Pole, the high Arctic, across Australia’s largest desert, the Great Victoria and retracing the polar journey of Sir Douglas Mawson using only the same gear, equipment and starvation rations as Mawson did in 1913. The documentary – Mawson Life and Death in Antarctica was flagship of the Film Australia ‘Making History’ series, and fronted Channel 4’s highly acclaimed ‘Edge of Endurance’ series in 2007. Expedition patrons were Australian Prime Minister the Hon John Howard and Sir Ernest Shackleton’s grand-daughter the Hon Alexandra Shackleton.

In 2013, Tim led the first authentic retracing of polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s “double” – sailing a replica James Caird boat 1500kms across the Southern Ocean from Elephant Island, Antarctica to South Georgia and climbing over South Georgia’s mountainous interior using the same rudimentary equipment, period clothing and technology as Shackleton. Regarded by many as the greatest survival journey of all time, this is the first time since Shackleton that anybody has been able to authentically recreate it. A Discovery Channel/PBS documentary film and best-selling Harper Collins Book Shackleton’s Epic: Recreating the World’s Greatest Journey of Survival have been made about the expedition.

After over two decades of polar travel and work as an environmental scientist, Tim is a well-known public speaker, applying the lessons he has learned throughout his various expeditions to talk about leadership, problem solving, teamwork, change management and goal setting in an organisational context.

In addition to Shackleton’s Epic, Tim’s books include The Unforgiving Minute (Random House) and Mawson: Life and Death in Antarctica (MUP), released in conjunction with his international documentary film of the same name and officially endorsed by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2009. He is co-author of the academic book The Frozen Planet (Open University, UK) jointly released with Sir David Attenborough’s BBC TV series.

Tim was conferred a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to environment, community and exploration in the 2010 Australian honours list and was made a Fellow of the Yale World Fellows Program 2009 for his international leadership in the field of environmental sustainability. He holds the record for the fastest unsupported journey to the South Pole and was voted both the Australian Adventurer of the Year in 2013 and Conservationist of the Year in 2016 (Australian Geographic Society) – the only person ever to receive both awards.

In 2013 he received the Sydney Institute of Marine Science’s Emerald award for services to the environment and the Royal Institute of Navigation’s Certificate of Achievement as Expedition Leader of the Shackleton Epic Expedition. In 2017 he was made a Bragg Fellow by the Royal Institution of Australia – RiAus’ highest award that recognises excellence in scientific achievement and commitment to science communication.

Tim received the prestigious Bettison James award 2016 for documentary film-making for his current project, 25Zero that highlights climate change through the plight of the world’s melting equatorial glaciers.

There is a dawning realisation that humans are part of nature not above it. Wild Earth Oceania has a crucial role to play in using the power of storytelling and film to both inform and inspire us to want to act to protect nature, not least of all because our very lives depend on it.

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Jacquie Pohl is the Founder and Director of WILD EARTH OCEANIA, Australia’s first Film Festival ever purely focused on Wildlife.

With a relentless pursuit of passion and adventure and a lifetime dedicated to Wildlife Conservation and academic excellence as well as a tenacious spirit that knows no bounds, Jacquie is laser focused on restoring Australia’s Wildlife through this Australian first initiative.

She had her roots in Africa in the first farm ever inhabited by white people, living amongst the North Sotho tribe and surrounded by wild animals. Jacquie’s family came to Australia to find freedom away from racial oppression. Her Grandmother was the daughter of the British High Commissioner, leading Jacquie experienced vivid juxtapositions early in life. Her Great Uncle Victor Pohl’s childhood was spent on fascinated contemplation of the Wild creatures around him, going on to be a famous author whose wildlife stories made up the Year 12 curriculum. His book The Dawn and The Horizon personally accepted by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II on their Royal Tour to South Africa.

Jacquie was exposed to Film from a very young age. She bore witness to the set and filming of BREAKER MORANT, the second film ever made by the South Australian Film Corporation after PELICAN BOY. This had special meaning to the unfolding of her own history, the Boer War occurring on her family farm in the Limpopo Province in South Africa bordering Botswana, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.

Her love of the outdoors drove her to engage in high performance, adventure, and ocean sports over decades. She is a qualified scuba diver including night and deep diving, a kayak instructor and is a self-confessed adrenaline junkie. Completing three degrees in Outdoor Education, Music and the arts Arts, as well as a Bachelor of Applied Science in Occupational Therapy before she was twenty-three, Jacquie then lived in the UK, the USA and Australia specialising in neuroscience as a clinician and academic over the next 15 years.

Jacquie is most at ease when facing tough conditions and being tested. Difficult Wildlife rescues and being out for days and nights have produced a learning for which she is ever grateful. She lived on the land in an Eco home and personally nurtured and nourished twenty-five species over five years, immersing herself in biodiversity, eco-systems, disease profiling, Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation. Her journey rescuing and learning from wildlife started when she a very young child.

Her wealth of experience in Round-Square Education and long-standing passion for youth gives her a strong edge in Internationalism, Wildlife Film, Democracy, Environmentalism, Leadership, and Service.

She has worked as a National Film Director with an extensive background in documentary film making and community film projects.

Jacquie has worked in Human Rights on an International scale and embraces growth mindset in practise and teaching. She is leading young girls and women to achieve gender equality in Wildlife film and Conservation.

With tenacity, high performance, self-reflection and resilience as core values, Jacquie is also a practising artist and musician. Jacquie is a horizontal thinker that believes firmly in equality and valuing people for who they really are.

A strong advocate for One-health, she facilitates and promotes individual, community, and societal well-being through film, taking a biopsychosocial perspective with the fundamental belief that everyone on this planet deserves to thrive.

Wild Earth Oceania (WEO) is her vision and a clear, efficacious, self-determinant response to the Black Summer Fires in Australia of 2019 / 2020 and Covid-19, both of which clearly demonstrate that we are pushing the planet too hard.

WEO are fast-tracking innovative solutions to the planetary crisis we find ourselves in through bringing awareness to and tangible support / relief for the great benefit for the defenceless and vulnerable wildlife who rely on us to protect them.

The bush fires were catastrophic. Three billion animals perished as a direct result of the fires, burning over 18 million hectares of land. I realised we needed to have an equal and opposite response in order to turn this around – something that would bring people on to the same page and be sustainable and which would grow and flourish.
Wild Earth Oceania was born by using large scale adversity as a lever to create large scale positive and efficacious change

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