Tim Jarvis

It was also then, at 1580 km, the longest unsupported journey in the Antarctic.

Using the same materials, clothing, food and a Thomas Mercer chronometer as in the original voyage, Jarvis and the team sailed their replica James Caird from Elephant Island, in the Southern Ocean, to South Georgia, just as Shackleton did in 1916, with only a chronometer as a navigational tool.

Timothy John Jarvis (born 7 May 1966) is an Australian explorer, climber, author, environmental activist, and documentary filmmaker.

Timothy John Jarvis was born on 7 May 1966 in Manchester, England.

His father being an accountant for the company that distributed Tiger Balm, he grew up in Malaysia in the 1970s, and then attended United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA) in Singapore.

This school incorporated a lot of outdoor activities and "learning by doing".

After first studying for a BA (Hons) degree in geography at the University of Brighton in England in 1988, Jarvis earned an MSc in environmental science at the Cranfield Institute (Cranfield, Bedfordshire) in 1993.

In 1996 he joined an unsupported expedition that crossed a 500 km of ice sheet of Spitsbergen in the Norwegian Arctic.

The following year, he emigrated to Australia.

He is best known for his numerous Antarctic expeditions, particularly his attempted Antarctic crossing in 1999 and the period recreations of historical treks by Sir Douglas Mawson and Sir Ernest Shackleton.

In 1999 he undertook, with fellow Australian explorer Peter Treseder, the fastest unsupported journey to the Geographic South Pole, taking just 47 days.

In 2001, he took 29 days to undertake the first-known unsupported crossing of the Great Victoria Desert (straddling the states of South Australia and Western Australia), a journey of 1100 km. In 2002, he undertook an unsupported expedition to the North Pole, covering 400 km across the ice of the Arctic Ocean, and in 2004, an unsupported land journey from Warburton River and Lake Eyre in South Australia.

Further studies in Australia earned him a masters in environmental law through the Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law at Sydney University and the University of Adelaide in 2002.

In 2023 Jarvis completed the online course "Leading Sustainability: High Impact Leadership", at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, part of the University of Cambridge.

Jarvis is an explorer, adventurer, and mountain climber.

Jarvis is the author of The Unforgiving Minute (2004), which recounts his expeditions to the North and South Poles as well as the crossing of several Australian deserts, and Mawson – Life and Death in Antarctica, to accompany the 2008 DVD of the same name.

In April 2007 Jarvis completed an expedition in Antarctica where he attempted to recreate the pressures of the 1913 Australian Antarctic Expedition and human survival feat of Sir Douglas Mawson.

Jarvis walked close to 500 km pulling a sleigh full of supplies, and living on almost the same rations as Mawson himself.

Jarvis wanted to find out if the story of Mawson was physically possible.

At the end of the expedition Jarvis said, "I haven't really done what Mawson did because I have doctors checking my situation, a film crew following me and a number of other safety precautions. Mawson had none of that."

He is also contributing author of the coursebook Frozen Planet produced by Open University, a course linked with the BBC's Frozen Planet series that aired in 2011.

Jarvis is well-known public speaker who presents regularly around the world.

He formerly worked as a Senior Associate – Sustainability to engineering firm Arup, and has also advised the World Bank, AusAID, and the Asian Development Bank on multilateral aid projects.

His environmental work is mainly focused on climate change, sustainable aid provision in developing countries, and improving corporate environmental sustainability.

Other work includes "significant project" management through his project 25zero, which uses equatorial glacial melt as an indicator of global climate change; the ForkTree Project, which aims to rewild an area of degraded farmland; and advocacy for the establishment of marine protected areas.

The construction of the replica James Caird ("an open boat not much bigger than a rowboat" ) was started in June 2008 and was finished in 2010, and was officially launched on 18 March 2012 in Dorset, England.

The sea voyage was followed by a trek across the mountainous interior of South Georgia to the historic whaling station of Stromness.

The project, led by Jarvis, was the first successful recreation of the "double" voyage using only period gear.

Members of the Shackleton's Epic crew were Nick Bubb, Barry "Baz" Gray, Paul Larson, Seb Coulthard, and Ed Wardle.

The expedition's patron was Alexandra Shackleton, granddaughter of Ernest Shackleton.

In February 2013 Jarvis and five others successfully recreated Sir Ernest Shackleton's "epic" crossing of the Southern Ocean in the Alexandra Shackleton, a replica of Shackleton's lifeboat the James Caird.

His book Shackleton's Epic: Recreating the World's Greatest Journey of Survival, published by Harper Collins, was released in the UK and Australia in November 2013.

Jarvis is also involved in various philanthropic ventures including as a former (until 2019) Board Member of Zoos SA (comprising Adelaide Zoo and Monarto Safari Park), fundraising work with Helping Rhinos (a UK charity aiming to save rhinoceros species from extinction ) as an Ambassador of the Australian Rhino Project, and his former role as councillor of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Since 2019, Jarvis has lobbied to establish an East Antarctic Marine Protected Area together with Save Our Marine Life (an alliance of leading conservation organisations) and the Pew Charitable Trust.

Jarvis authored the forward to the report The East Antarctic Marine Park: Maintaining Australia's Legacy, produced in 2019.

He is a board director of the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, and ambassador for Koala Life.

He is an advisor to the Pew Foundation on marine conservation issues, and undertook a nationwide tour of Australia in May and June 2023, together with representatives from Pew and the Australian Marine Conservation Society, featuring a short film about the need to protect the ocean surrounding Macquarie Island.

The campaign was instrumental in helping secure the 475,000 km2 Macquarie Island Marine Sanctuary, declared by Australian Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek in 2023.

Jarvis is involved in developing a Biodiversity Act for South Australia, through his role as Biodiversity Legislation Champion with the South Australian Government.

Jarvis says he is "committed to finding pragmatic solutions to global environmental sustainability issues", and as a public speaker he talks regularly about motivation, project management and change leadership to both individuals and organisations.