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From the icy reaches of Antarctica to the remote islands of Melanesia in the Pacific Ocean, Heritage Expeditions is not only taking guests on unforgettable journeys – we are also helping to shape the future of scientific discovery.
Through close collaborations with leading researchers and Indigenous partners, and by involving guests as citizen scientists, we are making meaningful contributions to the global understanding of climate, biodiversity and cultural heritage.
Our contribution begins in the southernmost waters of the world, where Heritage Expeditions has supported groundbreaking climate research for over a decade. Our guests have been collecting air flask samples from the Southern Ocean for New Zealand Crown Research Institute’s GNS Science. The Southern Ocean is the world’s most important carbon dioxide ‘sink’ because it absorbs a large fraction of human-produced carbon dioxide, which helps to slow climate change. The ongoing sampling is being used to map the impact this is having on the Southern Ocean and, in turn, the environment.
“With the assistance of Heritage Expeditions and its citizen scientists, we’re finally getting closer to understanding the Southern Ocean,” said Jocelyn Turnbull, principal scientist for GNS Science.
While our work in the Southern Ocean offers insight into global climate systems, other voyages focus on discovering life forms scarcely known to science, or entirely new to it.
Guests onboard our ‘Indonesian Explorer’ and ‘Discover the Secrets of Melanesia’ voyages can help Professor Tim Flannery, a mammalogist, conservationist, author and scientist, with the discovery of new mammal species on rarely visited islands.
“My favourite sighting was on Kofiau Island in Raja Ampat,” said Flannery. “Before our visit, only a single mammal species was known from the island. But from just 12 hours on the island, we documented 19 more, including one of the world’s rarest and most mysterious bats, the Moluccan fishing bat. Going to that island was like filling in a huge blank. There had only been a single record of a mammal from that island up until we did that work. That is what citizen science is all about. We ended up publishing a significant scientific paper on the findings at Kofiau.
“There is a real sense of adventure for guests, and scientists, joining us on these expeditions. Very little is known about some of the places we go and the wildlife that lives there. Part of the work by onboard scientists is to gather more information about the wildlife residing there, it is real pioneering zoology.”
Heritage Expeditions guests can help the study of ancient penguin colonies through bone and eggshell collections
While some guests and scientists explore remote islands for elusive mammals, others are unearthing secrets from the past – and clues about the future – by studying ancient penguin colonies while in Antarctica. Here, guests can help leading penguin scientist Professor Steve Emslie and assistant Kate Sutherland from the University of North Carolina to collect penguin bones and eggshells that are thousands of years old at the world’s largest and oldest Adelie penguin colony at Cape Adare. Home to more than 338,000 breeding pairs of birds, the Adelie has the longest fossil record of any seabird in Antarctica and provides critical insights into how the colony has adapted to climate change.
Research onboard our ship, Heritage Adventurer, has led to new and significant findings that would have otherwise been impossible to retrieve. The passengers were thrilled by the experience and Emslie and Sutherland plan to make future trips with us to continue sampling the Ross Sea during citizen science projects.
These scientific efforts are further enriched by a world-first initiative led by indigenous knowledge holders. Heritage Expeditions’ work alongside Ngāi Tahu, the principal Māori tribe of New Zealand’s South Island, is redefining how research is conducted in Antarctica.
The world’s first indigenous-led Antarctic research programme with Heritage Expeditions and South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu on the Murihiku ki te Tonga programme has resulted in a detailed survey of a key archaeological site on Enderby Island, more penguin mapping at Cape Adare, extensive research on orcas, and the submission of Murihiku ki te Tonga’s first research paper to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.
“I am personally a great fan of Heritage Expeditions and the commitment shown by the Russ family,” said Tā Tipene O’Regan, head of the Awarua Rūnaka of Ngāi Tahu. “This is a case of a growing partnership that has the opportunity to deliver amazing results for all New Zealanders across a number of areas. They’ve got a particular set of values which, I and many of my Kai Tahu colleagues, admire enormously. They are values which protect the impact of visitors and take great care to ensure the protection and heritage of these rare and wondrous places, that are such an integral component in our own Kai Tahu heritage.
“We owe them a great debt of appreciation and gratitude for the efforts that they have made to preserve what they bring people to see. And the way they do it actually enhances the value of that heritage in a very real way. We’ve been able to contribute some small measure to their vision of what they do, they have been able to enormously enhance our vision and our dream, our moemoeā of our delivery and protection of our own heritage in this very special rohe willed to us by our tīpuna.”
Aaron Russ is commercial director and expedition leader at Heritage Expeditions, with experience on over 200 expeditions to the world’s most remote regions
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