The future of exploration | Oliver Steeds | TEDxBermuda
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Explorer and journalist Oliver Steeds journeys through humankind’s “giant leaps” and explains why he believes the next great frontier is the manned exploration of the deep ocean. Steeds has explored or reported in more than 100 countries. Oliver Steeds is a critically acclaimed international investigative journalist and broadcaster. He specializes in original investigations and reporting the under-reported often in hostile environments. Oliver’s investigations have included exposing ongoing chattel slavery in Niger and Mauritania; the theft of malaria treatment drugs in the ‘malarial capital in the world’ in Uganda; grave robbing in Peru; thousands of mentally impaired people being abducted into slavery in China; antiquity smuggling in Israel; hidden ethnic wars in Burma; tens of thousands of people dying in China’s coal mines; the lives of 9-11 hijackers in Saudi Arabia, and al Qaeda gun markets in Yemen; and thousands of North Korean women being forced into prostitution or sold as brides in China. Other investigations have revealed the Burmese Junta’s illegal hardwood and gem trade, greenwashing, human rights violations and questionable priorities driving the conservation movement; how marine reserves can replenish collapsed fishing stocks and untapped energy possibilities from tidal power to creating synthetic fuel from plastics. Oliver has worked with dozens of tribal groups around the world from West Papua to the Sahara, from the DRC to Saudi’s Aseer, including investigating and exposing major land rights violations against the Saami Reindeer herders in Sweden, the San Bushmen in Botswana, the Samburu in Kenya and the impact of the Australian Government’s controversial emergency legislation (aka ‘the Intervention’) on the lives of Aboriginal people. His investigations have appeared on Channel 4’s Dispatches and Unreported World, Channel 4 News, ABC Nightline, NBC Today, Al Jazeera’s People & Power, Witness and Earthrise. He has been nominated for the Rory Peck Impact Award, Best Current Affairs Programme, Livingstone Award for Young Journalists and Overseas Press Awards.
