Mattias Klum

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Mattias Klum (born February 10, 1968 in Uppsala) is a Swedish freelance photographer and film producer in natural history and culture subjects. Klum has had several wildlife documentaries shown on Swedish national TV. Klum has had his work featured in Wildlife Conservation, Audubon, Geo, National Geographic, and other magazines. For the National Geographic Magazine Klum has three cover stories: “Malaysia’s Secret Realm” (August 1997), “Asia’s Last Lions” (June 2001) and "Meerkats Stand Tall" (September 2002). His photographs have been exhibited in one-man shows at renowned museums and art galleries in the USA, Sweden, Malaysia, India and Japan among other countries. Klum has published nine books, four of them available in English: Exploring the Rainforest, Borneo Rainforest, Horse People and Being There.

Klum started shooting for a living while still in his teens. Since 1986 he has been a freelance photographer and film producer specializing in natural history—his boyhood passion.

Klum has undertaken major expeditions to Malaysian Borneo and Brunei (1988), Nigeria (1990), Brazil and Costa Rica (1991), Malaysian Borneo (1995-1996), India (1999), Guyana (1999), India (2000), Malaysia, Thailand, India and South Africa (2001), Ecuador, Panama and Mongolia (2002), Malaysia (2003 and 2004), Peru and Antarctica (2005), The Linnaeus expedition to seven continents (2006 and 2007), Iceland (2007) and Indonesia, Malaysia (2007 and 2008). Mattias Klum has produced documentary films including Borneo’s Rainforest and The Brittle Thread (Asia’s Last Lions) together with his wife and colleague Monika Klum and The Linnaeus Expedition with producer Folke Rydén.

Over the years, Mattias Klum has received numerous awards and grants for his work. Uppsala City Council bestowed him with its gold medal for his outstanding work from an Uppsala base. The Uppsala County Administration granted Mattias with the title Citizen of the Year in Uppland 2007. In 2008 Mattias was nominated as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. His Majesty the King of Sweden has granted Mattias with his medal of the 8th grade with blue ribbon for his important contributions as a nature photographer. Mattias is also a member of the Board of Trustees of WWF - Sweden and fellow of The Linnean Society of London.

In 2007 Mattias contributed in starting the publishing company Tierra Grande Publishing, the fundraising Terra Magna Foundation and EXPEDITIONSVERIGE.SE (Expedition Sweden), a five-year long environment and inspiration project about Sweden.