The Big Interview: Paul Rose – Protecting our pristine seas
Awarded an honorary degree by the University in 2024, Paul’s remarkable life has touched every corner of our ever-changing planet
Steel bars partially block the view of a huge chemical depot. The glow from its lights illuminates the north bank of the River Thames, simultaneously clouding the night sky. But Paul Rose isn’t here for the view. Camped on the balcony of his family’s council flat, there is only one thing on his mind.
“I was 12 and wanted to spend every possible hour outdoors,” he says. “I loved the feeling of fresh air – it helped me dream of being off somewhere else.”
The journeys Paul has been on since are nothing short of remarkable. From that Essex balcony, he has scaled the slopes of Everest and Erebus. He has spent months at a time on the ice sheets of the Antarctic and Greenland.
And he has journeyed to the remotest parts of the global ocean.
It’s clear his passion for the planet and its people – and finding ways to protect both – burns bright.
As someone who spends their life on the move, it’s perhaps no surprise we meet virtually. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m in my workshop today,” Paul says, with a smile that only fades fleetingly during our chat. “We’re having some work done on the house, and I don’t want us to be disturbed.” I don’t mind, quite the opposite in fact.
At home in Geneva, where near neighbours include the United Nations and World Economic Forum, his workshop sees motorbikes competing for space with wetsuits and oxygen tanks. Even though we’re both staring at laptops, it provides a window into the life of an explorer never far from his next adventure.
Paul’s ambitions clearly know few, if any, boundaries. But like many youngsters, his early interests were in being anywhere but the classroom.
Leaving school at 15, he managed to get an apprenticeship at Ford’s huge base in Dagenham, a stone’s throw from home. He spent hours making parts for some of the most iconic British cars of the 1960s and 70s.
But away from the production line, the money earned went into more adventurous pursuits.
“I did my first dive off Portland Bill in Easter 1969,” Paul says.
“I’d done all the training and made my own wetsuit, even with yellow tape – it looked like Jacques Cousteau’s.
I hadn’t been in for a couple of minutes, and instantly felt like an ocean explorer. It unlocked something in me.”
Paul Rose makes a new acquaintance while diving in the Seychelles
Paul Rose during a Pristine Seas expedition to Clipperton Island in the Pacific
The UK’s economic challenges in the 1970s prompted Paul to leave Essex for the city of Waukegan, on the western shores of Lake Michigan.
Working in engineering during the day once again went hand in hand with outdoor pursuits, training to become a diving instructor and then working as a mountain guide.
However, his life would change forever thanks to the first in a series of chance conversations.
Guiding on Mount McKinley in Alaska, he bumped into a climber at around 11,000ft who, Paul recalls, “had clearly fallen foul of bad weather”. After speaking for around an hour, he was told the British Antarctic Survey were looking for people who could dive.
“The advert said you had to be under 35 and single,” Paul says. “I called them and said I was 36 and married. I wasn’t quite what they were looking for. But based on my work in the States, they took me on anyway to work as part of another project.”
The next opportunity emerged while Paul was recuperating from those first brushes with Antarctica.
The phone rang, a man from NASA introduced himself, and within a few minutes Paul had signed up to help test the Mars lander in an area close to Mount Erebus.
There is no small irony that less than two decades after he was making parts for the Ford Cortina, he was helping refine one of the most technologically advanced vehicles ever made to that point.
Research drilling on the Antarctic ice shelf
Paul is at his happiest in his diving gear
Paul befriending the local Antarctic wildlife
While on that project, another call came from the British Antarctic Survey. Was Paul interested in becoming the commander of their research station on Antarctica? He didn’t take much convincing.
“I ended up doing that for ten years, six months on and six months off,” he says. “If you’re working on base, it’s actually pretty soft – warm and comfortable, great food, laundry facilities, a library, music, etc. In the field though, it’s the complete opposite.”
Antarctica has a special place in Paul’s heart. But his descriptions of life on the ice sends a chill through me. There can be two of you in a tent for 100 days at a time. Everything you do is hard work, from scientific tasks to melting snow for tea and coffee. The weather, benign on some days, can leave you unable to make progress for a week. At that point, he says, a storm can feel like it’s out to get you. But when I ask if he’d like to go back, the answer is immediate: “I miss it.”
After a decade in Antarctica, and time in Greenland, another door opened. He met a researcher named Enric Sala, who explained his vision of going to the remotest parts of the global seas. “Enric told me it felt like every single science paper he wrote was an obituary for the ocean,” Paul says. “He wanted to change that, and set up the Pristine Seas project. Its vision was simple: to protect the last pristine bits of the ocean.”
Supported by the National Geographic Society, Pristine Seas has since run 47 expeditions in 12 years. From its first trip to Franz Josef Land, an archipelago in Arctic Russia, to its most recent visit to the Solomon Islands, it has uncovered locations largely unspoilt by humans – for now.
But these are places no less at risk than the coastlines we see every day. Another thing they do have, Paul explains, is people who are passionate about their environment and acutely concerned about the future.
“With Pristine Seas, we are guided and led by indigenous people,” he says. “Before we set sail, we establish those relationships, and talk to elders. Meeting in person, I always get the feeling they spend the first few minutes sizing me up. But you have to bear in mind that they and their ancestors have a huge breadth of knowledge. We respect that, and they need to know they can trust me.”
This is just one example of how, for Paul, when you talk planet you need to talk people. That means not only going somewhere to study it, but to find ways for local people to see what you’re studying with their own eyes. He insists on having local divers on the science dives, and puts community leaders in the expedition submarine so they can see beneath the ocean surface.
The weather, benign on some days, can leave you unable to make progress for a week. At that point, he says, a storm can feel like it’s out to get you. But when I ask if he’d like to go back, the answer is immediate: “I miss it.”
Rothera Research Station, the largest British Antarctic facility, is a centre for biological research
During these and other expeditions, it is clear he takes just as much away from meeting people as exploring the landscape.
In 2011, he was asked to host the Human Planet Prom – part of the famous concert series at the Royal Albert Hall – and the line-up included singers from Greenland, where he has also spent a good deal of time.
“I was delighted when I saw them on the bill,” Paul says. “We went out afterwards and had a great night. I loved hearing their stories – it was like being transported back onto the ice sheet.”
That commitment to people also extends to future generations. Paul has given talks to students at the University and is formulating plans for more. A couple of months ago he spoke to 500 students in Brussels and “knew the ocean was in safe hands from the moment I entered the room”. Talking to young people, he says, gives him hope.
On the flip side, you’d imagine the opportunity to hear from one of the world’s leading adventurers – although he’d never consider himself that, modestly describing himself as “someone who works in science support” – would be invaluable.
After all, his work with some of the world’s leading global science and media organisations – a list far too long to include here – has put him in a privileged position to talk about the changes impacting our planet.
In fact, my asking of a serious question – about examples of climate change he has witnessed – is the only time during our conversation where his smile briefly softens. He explains how glaciers he has visited on expeditions have retreated markedly by the time he returns a few years later. He also saw around 20,000sq km of the Larsen Ice Shelf detach from the Antarctic mainland. Despite this, aligned to his views about young people, he says he is more positive about the planet now than for decades.
Before I leave Paul to plan his next expedition, there’s one more question I want to ask.
As arguably one of the best travelled people on the planet, is there anything left on his bucket list?
“I want to go into the abyss,” he says, the smile returning. “I’d love to get in a submarine and dive to the Mariana Trench.”
Given his life journey so far, you might want to watch this space.
Paul Rose in the Lake District, the subject of one of his TV documentaries
Paul receiving his Honorary Doctorate of Science in July 2024
Giving a talk about Pristine Seas to an audience at the University