2022 Sir Charles Blois Explorer AMBER CARTER – VOICES OF THE VEZO

Amber is a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. Her research, based in Madagascar, is focused on the relationships between traditional fishing communities and marine ecosystems under the pressures of environmental change.

Amber’s expedition will work with traditional Vezo fishing communities in remote coastal villages in Madagascar. For over half a century, the largely undocumented destruction of Madagascar’s marine ecosystem has threatened the livelihoods of Vezo fishers. The expedition will use film and storytelling to document the rich ecological knowledge of Vezo elders. Vezo elders can provide a unique long-term perspective on the transformation of Madagascar’s marine ecosystem, yet the window to document their knowledge is disappearing fast.

2022 Elodie Sandford Explorer EMI KOCH – THE QUEST FOR LORD FISH

Emi is a social ecologist, National Geographic Explorer, and Fulbright Fellow. She is co-founder of Coast 2 Coast, a Peruvian non-profit that works with young learners in small-scale fishing communities using audio-visual storytelling tools and youth-led participatory research for students to explore their aquatic social-ecological systems and communicate their importance.

Emi’s expedition is a collaboration between marine scientists, small-scale fishers, community elders, and young learners in fishing villages, to document Ông Nam Hải, mysterious, adorned, and often at times collapsing temples along Vietnam’s coastline. Many “whale temples” were destroyed during the American (Vietnam) War. The objective is to register the remaining temples through community-based participatory research approaches to enable the conservation of these spiritual ecological sites and Vietnam’s imperilled marine mammals, and youth’s involvement.

2022 Judith Heath Explorer WENDY ACHMMAD MUSTAQIM – HEATHER PLANTS OF MOUNT KEMIRI

Wendy works as a botanist, with research interests ranging from plant taxonomy to conservation. He lives in Aceh, Indonesia, and is keen to understand and conserve the magnificent tropical forest of Southeast Asia. His particular interests are plants from mountain vegetations, including heather, orchids, and many other seed plants.

Wendy’s expedition is a ‘first’ and will explore and document the heather plant family on Mount Kemiri, (the third highest summit in Sumatra), and its adjacent summits. It is an area with the most extensive subalpine vegetation in Sumatra, yet knowledge of the species and genetic diversity from this area is poorly known. Wendy’s objective is to find undocumented species new to science, and gather important data for the future conservation of this mountainous plant group.

2022 Neville Shulman Explorer ETTORE CAMERLENGHI – KERGUELEN, THE DESOLATION ISLANDS

Ettore is an Italian biologist, a science communicator, and a documentarist. His interest ranges from ecology and the study of animal societies to traditional indigenous knowledge and conservation. He alternates fieldwork in Australia (where he is conducting his PhD research), to expeditions in the Amazon and in the Andes.

Ettore’s expedition will explore Kerguelen, a wild and sub-Antarctic land. Despite being among the most remote places on earth, the Kerguelen islands suffer the impact of distant human actions. Ettore will join a scientific expedition to these islands and film a documentary about anthropogenic impacts, such as invasive species, plastic pollution, and climate change. Located 3,300 km south of Madagascar, this group of Indian Ocean islands offers the unique opportunity to reflect on the global impact of human activities that don’t spare even the most remote places on earth.

2022 SES Explorer JAMES KEMPTON – EXPEDITION PAYANGKO

James is a researcher at the University of Oxford. From attaching cameras to birds for studying their soaring energetics, designing algorithms for autonomous drone flight, modelling the spread of infectious diseases, to conducting remote expeditions that discover new animal species, he works across diverse disciplines and mixes fieldwork and mathematical modelling to pursue his research.

James’s expedition aims to be the first scientific expedition to ascend the northern slopes of the Cyclops Mountains in Indonesian New Guinea. The expedition team will collect biological and geological samples from the mountains to discover new species, rediscover lost species (including the enigmatic Attenborough's Long-beaked Echidna), aid in the region's conservation, and support scientific research into the evolutionary diversification of New Guinea's fauna. Furthermore, in collaboration with the local Yongsu people and local NGOs, the expedition aims to develop the Cyclops Mountains as a home for scientific research and conservation.