Ed Stafford – Keynote Speaker

Ed Stafford walked into the history books when he became the first man to walk the length of the Amazon River. His epic adventure took two and a half years and everyone thought it was impossible.

Stafford attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and left the military in 2002 as a captain. He used his leadership and outdoor skills as an expedition leader on community and conservation expeditions in the jungles of Belize, Guatemala and Borneo.

After serving in Afghanistan as a UN contractor, Ed Stafford became Director of an expedition company in Patagonia Argentina carrying out scientific research projects and Northern Ice Cap traverses in Chile.

Prior to his world-first trek along the length of the Amazon, Ed worked for the BBC’s Natural History Unit setting up a film-production base camp in the heart of the Guyanese rainforest and managing the camp’s logistics once the film crew for ‘Lost Land of the Jaguar’ arrived on location.

After his epic world-first trek from the source of the Amazon to the Atlantic ocean (completed in 2010), Stafford has continued to push his limits and take on new challenges filming himself surviving in and exploring tough environments for Naked and Marooned, Into the Unknown, and two subsequent series of Marooned – all highly successful series with the Discovery Channel. A new series Left for Dead premiered on Discovery UK in the Autumn of 2017.

Ed Stafford has also written two books: Walking the Amazon and Naked and Marooned.

Photo credit: Martin Hartley