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The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support. Franz Kafka |
David Mayer de Rothschild (born 1978) is a British adventurer, ecologist, and environmentalist and head of Adventure Ecology, an expedition group raising awareness about climate change. He is a member of the Rothschild family, the youngest of three children of Victoria Schott (born 1949) and Sir Evelyn de Rothschild (b. 1931) of the Rothschild banking family of England. His middle name "Mayer" is taken from the name of the founder of the Rothschild family banking empire, Mayer Amschel Rothschild.
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The youngest heir to his family’s banking fortune, de Rothschild was born in 1978 in London, England. He is the younger brother of Anthony de Rothschild and Jessica de Rothschild. As a teenager, de Rothschild was a top-ranked horse jumper on Britain’s junior event team. He later gave up the sport to pursue his education, stating in an interview with The New Yorker “I realized there was more to life than spending hours and hours and hours on a horse.” After leaving Harrow School in 1996 he attended Oxford Brookes receiving a 2:1 B.Sc (Hons) in Political Science and Information Systems. In 2002, de Rothschild studied at the College of Naturopathic Medicine, London where he received an advanced Diploma in Natural Medicine, ND.
By age 20, de Rothschild had started his own music merchandising business and sold it. In 2001 he bought a 1,100 acre organic farm in New Zealand, and was invited to take part in a Polar expedition. This experience turned de Rothschild into an enterprising eco-adventurer.
In 2006, de Rothschild spent over 100 days crossing the Arctic from Russia to Canada, which saw him become one of only 42 people, and the youngest British person, to ever reach both geographical poles. He had already become one of only 14 people ever to traverse the continent of Antarctica, and was part of a team that broke the world record for the fastest ever crossing of the Greenland ice cap.
As part of Adventure Ecology’s ARTiculate series, de Rothschild led a field trip expedition to Ecuador in 2007. The group spent time in the Ecuadorian rain forest, documenting the damage international oil companies had caused by drilling the vast oil reserves.
In March 2010 de Rothschild and a crew of 5 began an expedition to sail across the Pacific on a catamaran partially made from reclaimed post-consumer plastic bottles called the Plastiki. The Plastiki successfully completed its journey to Sydney on 26 July 2010.
David de Rothschild was awarded the accolade of "Emerging Explorer" by National Geographic, was appointed an "international ambassador" by NGO Clean Up The World and nominated as a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum.
In 2007 de Rothschild wrote The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook: 77 Essential Skills to Stop Climate Change—Or Live Through It (ISBN 978-1-59486-781-1), with afterword by Kevin Wall, which was the official companion book to the Live Earth concert series. In 2008 he was the Consultant Editor for Earth Matters: An Encyclopedia of Ecology wrote action graphic novel, The Boy The Girl the Tree with artist Simon Harrison and wrote the Foreword to True Green Kids:True Green Kids: 100 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet.
In 2008, alongside others including Zac Goldsmith, David Cameron's environmental advisor, de Rothschild helped to write the commentary for the book Antarctica - The Global Warning.
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