FAME AND WISDOM - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Founder of Deep Ocean Exploration

Formerly Chief Scientist of NOAA, Dr. Earle is the Founder of Deep Ocean Exploration and Research, Inc., Founder of Mission Blue and The Sylvia Earle Alliance, Chair of the Advisory Council of the Harte Research Institute, the Ocean in Google Earth, and leader of the NGS Sustainable Seas Expeditions. She has a B.S. degree from Florida State University, M.S. and PhD. from Duke University, 22 honorary degree s and has authored more than 180 scientific, technical and popular publications, lectured in more than 70 countries, and appeared in hundreds of radio and television productions.

Simon Reeve is an adventurer, TV presenter and New York Times bestselling author with a passion for travel, wildlife, history, current affairs, conservation and the environment. Simon is the presenter of the BBC TV series Indian Ocean and has been around the world three times for the BBC series Equator, Tropic of Capricorn, and Tropic of Cancer. He has travelled extensively in more than 110 countries. Simon is an ambassador for the nature conservation organisation WWF, and has been awarded a One World Broadcasting Trust award for an "outstanding contribution to greater world understanding", and the prestigious 2012 Ness Award by the Royal Geographical Society. His books include Tropic of Capricorn (published by BBC Books), and The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism, a New York Times bestseller, published in 1998, which predicted the rise of al Qaeda and a new age of apocalyptic terrorism. His book One Day in September: the story of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre is also an Oscar-winning documentary movie. Simon is rapidly becoming one of the most widely travelled people in the country. On his travels he's been arrested for spying by the KGB, taught to fish by the President of Moldova, tracked by terrorists, electrocuted in a war-zone and protected by stoned Somali mercenaries. He's hunted with the Bushmen of the Kalahari, walked through minefields, witnessed trench warfare in the Caucasus, struggled across the country enduring the most violent conflict on the planet since WW2, and wandered through a radioactive waste dump while protected by little more than a shower curtain. He holds an official Somali diplomatic passport - bought from a man called Mr Big Beard in Mogadishu, the most dangerous city in the world. He's been surrounded by a pack of hungry cheetahs, adopted by a tribe of former head-hunters in Borneo, blackmailed and abandoned by drivers in an Ebola zone, pursued by a huge amorous camel around a poisoned sea, had his life saved by Vietnamese sweet wormwood, and eaten some of the weirdest and most unusual foods available, from zebu penis soup to grilled squirrel. Simon has survived malaria, played polo with the corpse of a headless goat, swum with sea-lions, fished for piranhas, climbed the equivalent of half-way up Everest while surviving on coca leaves, travelled around the planet by van, canoe, car, train, boat, horseback, helicopter, plane, a 50-metre-long $1m truck, and used a zip-line to get inside one of the most repressive states in the world. Born and raised in west London, Simon went to a local comprehensive, where he was an unspectacular student. After a series of terrible jobs, including working in a supermarket, a jewellery shop, and a charity shop, Simon finally found gainful employment as a postboy at a national newspaper. Still in his teens, he sorted the mail during the day, and began researching and writing in his spare time. His ‘big break' came when he found two foreign terrorists on the run in the UK, and he began conducting investigations for the newspaper into subjects such as arms-dealing, nuclear smuggling, terrorism and organised crime. By the age of 19 he was a staff writer on the newspaper, one of the youngest ever. In 1993, Simon began studying the first World Trade Center attack just hours after the bombing. While investigating the background and origins of those responsible for the 1993 terrorist strike, Simon discovered more terror attacks were being planned by a disparate group of militants connected to the bombers - a group now commonly called al Qaeda. Over the next few years, Simon traced and interviewed ‘Afghan Arabs' and close friends and supporters of Osama bin Laden, along with senior FBI, CIA, and Asian intelligence officials. Simon had clandestine meetings with spies and militants in tea houses, car parks and burger bars, was followed by secret agents from at least two countries, and worked undercover in disguise while searching for a former Lebanese arms smuggler. Traveling across three continents, Simon obtained classified documents and evidence detailing the existence, development and aims of the most dangerous terrorist organisation in modern history. Simon's research and conclusions formed the basis of his first book The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism. Published in the UK and USA in the late 1990s it was the first book in the world on bin Laden and al Qaeda. The New Jackals warned al Qaeda was planning huge attacks on the West, and concluded an apocalyptic terrorist strike by the group was almost inevitable. Simon's next book was One Day in September: the story of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and Israeli revenge operation ‘Wrath of God', published by Faber and Faber. The movie of the same name, narrated by the actor Michael Douglas, won the Oscar for best feature documentary. At the time of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Simon's book The New Jackals was one of few sources of information about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The book became a New York Times bestseller, and in the three months after the 9/11 attacks was one of the top three bestselling books in the United States. Simon was repeatedly asked to comment on the new terror threat and the Western response. He became a regular guest and contributor to all of the major US and UK TV networks, including the BBC. Appearing on the BBC led to working for the BBC, and in recent years Simon has been travelling around little-known regions of the world for a series of television documentaries.

One of the most famous names in the world and loved in many countries, Sir Roger is also an Ambassador for Monaco, a country with a long history of Ocean Conservation and Environmental Protection.

Job Titles:

• Award Winning Actor, Author, Producer, Political Activist, Campaigner and Environmentalist

Although he was born in San Diego, California, Ted grew up away from the sea in Arizona. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama, in 1972 and moved to Los Angeles in 1978 to train with Dan Fauci at the famous Actor's Institute. His career began in television in commercials and soaps until his most famous casting in 1982 as the former baseball player and bartender in Cheers. The show ran for 11 seasons until May 20, 1993 when the finale was watched by 80 million people, becoming the second most watched finale in television history. As a protégé of the head of NBC entertainment Brandon Tartikoff, Ted appeared in a tribute to him after his death in 1997. He has said that he owes everything he has to Tartikoff. Popular with audiences who connect with his easy manner, he is a relationship builder who makes friends for life. He cares deeply about the environment, as the son of an archeologist and anthropologist, he says he grew up conscious of legacy and the lasting impact we have on the earth. It was during his time filming Cheers in Santa Monica that he became aware of Ocean pollution. He took his daughter to the beach and couldn't explain to her why they couldn't swim in the Ocean. It was after a meeting with the environmental lawyer Bob Sulnick that Ted became involved in a movement to prevent digging for oil wells in Santa Monica. Following the success of the movement, he helped to create the American Oceans Campaign in 1987, which became Oceana in 2001. Since those early campaigning years Ted has been an Ocean Advocates, appearing in Public Service Announcements, appealing to donors and testifying to the Government on the Condition of the World's Oceans. In 1988, he said we had 10 years to save the oceans or we would pay the consequences, many people believe he was right. He currently sits on Oceana's Board of Directors where he and his wife, actress Mary Steenburgen, continue to campaign. He believes that by restoring and strengthening natural marine systems, we can help feed people far into the future. It's a win/win situation. We simply need to put in place smart, low-cost, science-based policies on national levels that protect wild fish.