Bruce Parry

Adventurer and television presenter Bruce Parry is right at home in extreme situations.

The son of a teacher and a major in the Royal Artillery, Bruce has immersed himself fully in understanding indigenous peoples in the remotest corners of the world and championing their cause.

At 18, he served with the Royal Marines, going on to become the youngest ever physical training and sports officer. Eventually, at just 23, he would become the head of all physical aspects of British Commando Training. After six years in the Marines, Bruce retired and studied PE and sport at Loughborough University.

The 41-year-old’s experience of travelling far and wide would see him break into the media spotlight on Cannibals and Crampons, documenting his ascent of a remote peak in Papua with friend Mark Anstice. The documentary was snapped up by the BBC for their Extreme Lives series.

Since then, Bruce has presented three series of BBC Two’s award-winning Tribe, finding him living in remote communities and taking part in tribal rituals quite alien to the western world.

In 2009, he was recongised by BAFTA and awarded the prize for Best Factual Series for the six-part series, Amazon. Bruce and his team experienced the life-and-death traumas of the Amazon people and delivered a startling message on the loss of rainforest and climate change.

The series took him on a 6,000-kilometre journey from the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic coast. Along the way, he suffered altitude sickness, herded llamas, logged in the rainforest, harvested cocoa and slept in a hammock strung 45 metres above the ground.