SES Explorer Series: Leon McCarron - Wounded Tigris

Leon McCarron is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and explorer from Northern Ireland. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Geographical Society of Philadelphia's Explorer of the Year, and is known for long-distance expeditions and immersive multimedia storytelling. In the past decade, he has travelled over 50,000km by human power and is currently based in Iraq.

He has bylines for National Geographic, Noema, New Scientist, Smithsonian, BBC, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and The Telegraph. His books have been Top Ten Bestsellers on Amazon, a Sunday Times Book of the Week, and shortlisted for both the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award and the Adventure Travel prize at the Banff Mountain Book competition. Leon has presented films for the BBC, National Geographic, and Discovery, and regularly lectures in the UK, US, and around the world.

The river Tigris is in danger. It has been the lifeblood of ancient Mesopotamia and modern Iraq, but geopolitics and climate change have left the birthplace of civilisation at risk of becoming uninhabitable. In 2021, Leon travelled by boat along the full length of the river, in search of hope.
From the source, where Assyrian kings had their images carved into stone, McCarron and his small team journeyed through the Turkish mountains, across north-east Syria, and into the heart of Iraq. Passing by historic cities like Diyarbakir, Mosul, and Baghdad, McCarron kept the company of fishermen and farmers, but also artists, activists, and archaeologists who rely on the flow of the river. Occasionally harassed by militias, often helped by soldiers, McCarron rode his luck in areas still troubled by ISIS and relied on the generosity of a network of strangers to reach the Persian Gulf.

In his talk, Leon will talk about his journey from source to sea, and the book he's written about the journey, and pose the question: what does it mean if we lose one of the great rivers of civilisation? Find out more about Leon on his website and social media channels (Instagram and Twitter).

EVENT DETAILS

Date: Tuesday 24 September 2024

Venue: The Boulevard Bar, Hollywood Arms, 45 Hollywood Road, London SW10 9HX (off Fulham Road, near Chelsea and Westminster Hospital)

(Drinks from 6.30pm, talk will start promptly at 7pm, followed by Q&A)

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Host or Publisher Scientific Exploration Society