Laurence Brahm

Laurence J. Brahm is a Himalayan explorer and documentary film director specializing on the Himalayan region, and founder of Shambhala Studio, a media group specializing in Himalayan extreme expeditions. His "Searching for Shangri-la" film received the National Geographic Air and Water Conservation Award for raising environmental awareness in China. His passion for exploration in the Himalayan region led to three National Geographic expeditions between 2002-2006 in search of the mythical kingdom called Shangri-la, for which he was elected a Fellow International of the Explorer's Club in 2015. The Himalayan Trilogy published by IBIS is based on notes recorded from each expedition. From 2017 to present he has been directing and producing a series of films on the life of the Lotus-Born Master, the Eighth Century founder of Vajrayana Buddhism. These expeditions have crossed some of the most remote regions of the Himalayas in India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibetan regions of western China. He is exploring the relationship between ancient Asian philosophy and quantum physics. These films have won multiple international film festival awards. Brahm is also an environmental lawyer and social entrepreneur. He is founder of Shambhala Serai, one of Asia's first social enterprises featured in Forbes Magazine and recognized by the Pope's Encyclical for exemplifying successful social entrepreneurship at the 2016 Vatican Impact Investing Conference. Between 2013-2015, as Senior Advisor to China's Ministry of Environmental Protection he was architect of "Ecological Civilization," China's "green print" for renewable energy and water conservation, and was awarded the National Social Responsibility Award in 2016 and the Friendship Award (China's highest award given to a foreigner) in 2019, for his work on national environmental policy. He also served as advisor to Bhutan's National Environmental Commission. In 2015 Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson invited him to serve on the Himalaya - Third Pole Circle, a panel forming policy responses to glacial melt caused by climate change. In 2012 as NGO spokesperson to the United Nations Earth Summit 2012 (Rio+20), he was selected by ScenaRio as one of the "100 Opinion Leaders Advising Rio+20". In 2010 he received the UNDP Award for Bio-Diversity and Cultural Protection in China presented by Jane Goodall.