How Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Expeditions Have Been Saving Our Oceans
Rolex partners with National Geographic to launch the next series of its Perpetual Planet Expeditions focusing on sustaining and protecting ocean life.
By Renee Batchelor - published
Even today, the ocean with all its depths, mysteries and yet undiscovered creatures, remains one of the least understood yet most vulnerable environments on our planet. While the ocean makes up almost 75 percent of the Earth’s surface, and accounts for a large proportion of its biodiversity, only eight percent of it is currently protected. The need to document, understand and resolve the challenges that the ocean faces is a gargantuan task but it is one that Rolex has taken on as part of a two-year collaborative effort with National Geographic.
Led by a team of international National Geographic Explorers and multidisciplinary scientists, the Perpetual Planet Expeditions first began in 2019 with an expedition to Mount Everest to understand the effects of climate change on the glaciers of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya. Since then, a commitment has been made to explore and protect the planet’s most critical environments. Using scientific expertise and cutting-edge technology, these expeditions help uncover new insights about the impacts of climate change on the earth’s most vital systems including mountains, rainforests and oceans.
An over-under view of a recovering coral reef off the coast of the Cook Islands’ Rarotonga
Besides Mount Everest, additional expeditions have been made to Tupungato Volcano in the Southern Andes and to the Amazon River basin, where crucial information was learnt. At Canada’s Mount Logan, the second-highest mountain in North America, for example, a team led by glaciologist Alison Criscitiello and geologist Rebecca Haspel first installed a weather station and returned a year later to extract an ice core at a record depth of 327 metres—which is estimated to contain thousands of years of climate change information.
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The new Rolex and National Geographic Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions will be part of a two-year voyage that covers all five ocean basins. The expeditions will combine the best of both worlds: academic science and local ecological knowledge. All its stakeholders have the same aim: to protect and restore the largest ecosystem on Earth.
National Geographic Explorer and marine biogeochemist Kristina Brown laying out a bundle of kelp. Brown is leading the team investigating Sherman Basin’s unique productivity and climate resilience
Reflecting the diversity of the environments that these projects aim to cover, they truly span the globe. The first project, in the Arctic Ocean’s Sherman Basin, aims to sustain food security for the Arctic communities, with wider implications for the protection of other changing Arctic regions. In the Southern Ocean, the expedition was conducted in collaboration with the Schmidt Ocean Institute and its global ocean-class R/V Falkor (too), to investigate never-before-studied ecosystems and reveal the impact of environmental change from sea ice to sea floor.
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Meanwhile in the Indian Ocean, a National Geographic Explorer and local collaborator will work with the local fishing community in the Seychelles to protect the area’s most biodiverse and productive fishing grounds in what is slated to be the first-ever locally led deep ocean expedition.
Expedition team member Te Mata Patai removes taramea (crown-of-thorns starfish) from the reef at Avana Passage
Over in the Pacific Ocean, explorers in Rarotonga will work on corals, specifically looking to develop innovative methods to boost their tolerance to warming sea temperatures in a bid to help inform the restoration of coral reefs.
In the fifth and final ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, expedition teams are hoping to tackle the largely unchartered territories, by collecting some of the first oceanographic data on the waters that span the Gambian coastline. The teams will be specifically studying the role of mangroves in supporting biodiversity and food security in the region, and providing protection against the impacts of sea level rise for coastal communities, including the capital city of Banju.
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A group of young people return to shore after collecting sea urchins and shells
Deep-sea Explorer Katy Croff Bell will collaborate with the Explorers and local communities on each Perpetual Planet Ocean Expedition to deploy one or both of her low-cost, easy-to-use deep-sea sensing and imaging platforms, the Maka Niu and the Deep Ocean Research and Imaging System (DORIS, currently in development) to expand access to exploration of the depths.
The message is clear. The ocean is an important and valuable resource that needs to be preserved not just today, but for future generations. The work is challenging but meaningful, and with Rolex’s commitment to a Perpetual Planet, the brand hopes to continuously support individuals and organisations that have the same shared purpose of preserving our natural world.