The filmmaker and alternative energy proponent James Cameron and marine ecologist Enric Sala have been named as the National Geograhip Society's newest explorers in residence, the society announced.
The National Geographic Society that runs TV channels like the National Geographic Channel (DStv 260) and Nat Geo Wild (DStv 261) in South Africa award this title to explorers and scientists who then help to develop programs in their respective areas of study which is then supported by the Society.
James Cameron has notably organized a task force of deep-ocean experts to address offshore oil production and ocean engineering issues raised by the 2010 Gulf oil spill. He continues to work in the arena of alternative energy.
James Cameron is currently leading a team that is building a unique manned submarine capable of diving to the ocean's greatest depths, says the National Geographic Society in a press release. Next year he plans to pilot the submarine to the ocean's deepest point in the Pacific's Mariana Trench, part of a series of dives to the world's deepest places: the Mariana, Kermadec and Tonga trenches.
James Cameron and Enric Sala join 13 other National Geographic explorers in residence since the last new ones were announced in 2005: oceanographer Robert Ballard, anthropologist/ethnobotanist Wade Davis, geographer Jared Diamond, marine biologist Sylvia Earle, conservationist J. Michael Fay, archaeologist Zahi Hawass, filmmakers/conservationists Dereck and Beverly Joubert, paleontologists Meave and Louise Leakey, anthropologist Johan Reinhard, paleontologist Paul Sereno and geneticist Spencer Wells.
