ISSN 2754-4303
ISSUE 3, NOVEMBER, 2023
pg.19
CAN HUMANS LEARN FROM THEIR CLOSEST ANCESTORS? DATA DRIVEN CONSERVATION
pg.3
FROM BACKYARDS pg.27 TO BEYOND EXPEDITION INJURIES pg.11 ‘POLAR THIGH’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks to Issue sponsor: Dr Alexander Finnen
Peer review pannel Dr Emma Barrett OBE FRGS, Professor of Psychology, Security and Trust, University of Manchester, UK. Dr Richard Byrne, Rural Security Research Group, Harper Adams University, Newport, UK. Dr Susan Canney, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, UK. Claire Grogan, Barts Health NHS Trust Professor Chris Imray PhD FRCS FRCP FFSEM FRGS (Consultant, Vascular and Renal Transplant Surgeon), Deputy Medical Director of NIHR LCRN West Midlands.
Editors Dr Alicia Colson – Academic editor Briana Gervat Samantha Moore Michael Murphy Alyssa Sargent Briony Turner
Dr Shane McCorristine, Lecturer, School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, University of Newcastle, UK.
Design Alex Kerridge Past: Emma Miller – We would like to thank Emma for her ideas, enthusiasm and contributions as an editor and wish her well for the future. Take a look at her final editorial article, her interview with Paula Reid on page 13.
Professor Mark Mulligan, Department of Geography, King’s College London, UK. Dr Ross Piper FRES, Fellow, Royal Entomological Society, UK. Dr Carina Ren, Professor (Associate), Department of Culture and Global Studies, Aalborg University, Denmark. Dr Ash Routen, Research Fellow, Leicester Diabetes Centre, Leicester General Hospital, University of Leicester, UK. Professor Andrew Shortland, Professor of Archaeological Science and Director of Cranfield Forensic Institute, UK.
ISSUE SPONSORS Publication would not be possible without the generosity of issue sponsors -their donations to the charity cover the cost of plagiarism checks for the academic articles, stock image purchases and the costs associated with the publication platform. If you would be interested in sponsoring an issue, please get in touch with the editorial team at: explorationrevealed@ses-explore.org
Exploration Revealed is a hybrid magazine that aims to advance knowledge about and provide peer-to-peer support for scientific and adventure-led expeditions. It has been created with a view to learning through support, shared experiences, and the passing on of knowledge. Exploration Revealed is a publication of Scientific Exploration Society, a UK-based charity (No 267410). It is licensed under CreativeCommons Attribution-NoDerivaties 4.0 International License.
Read more at www.ses-explore.org
| Introduction |
Contents
Innovations In The Field
pg.3 How data is giving endangered species a fighting chance pg.5 Extraterrestrial Journeys
In-Country Connections pg.7 Instrument glitches in a global pandemic
Mind Matters & Bodily Functions pg.11 Cold-associated injuries in Antarctica
pg.15 Interview with Paula Reid about Adventure Psychology and her expeditions
Expedition Impact
pg.19 Medical Anthropology meets Community Work
Tales From The Field
pg.25 The Unclimbed peaks of Eastern Tibet pg.27 From Backyards to Beyond
Extreme Expeditioning
Visually Impaired Adventurer Shines Light on the Power of pg.30 Perspective and Possibility amidst the World’s Highest Peaks
Youth Expeditioning
pg.32 Junior Editor interviews Kids against Plastic founders
Expedition Revealed
pg.35 A photographic examination of fieldwork in the Mangrove Swamps, Australia
Fundworthy Expeditions pg.39 Expedition leaders seeking funding
Issue 3 November 2023 | 2
| Innovation in the field |
How data is giving endangered species a fighting chance: Data driven decision making in conservation The mission is clear. The goal is to understand the challenges facing protected areas in the heart of Central Africa, which is well known to be one of the world’s most important areas of unrecoverable carbon and home to dozens of endemic species. It’s a region beset by a multitude of threats: from a burgeoning trade in bushmeat (including subsistence hunters who, for generations, have
seen the forest as a source of protein to commercial teams carrying literal tonnes of meat out of the forest), by (i) well-armed poachers sponsored by international criminal gangs; (ii) violent tribal conflict (iii) terrorism; and (iv) the questionable commercial tactics of multinational extractive industries. The organization, Chengeta Wildlife provides support to those Issue 3 November 2023 | 3
at the frontline of efforts to protect some of the most endangered species in some of the world’s most challenging areas. Their partner. Langland Conservation is a not-forprofit based in the UK. Its team is global in order to pull together and deploy the best intelligence analysis available to conservation. Senior analyst, Dr Alice Ball is emblematic of Langland’s multi-disciplinary approach:
| Innovation in the field |
“prior to a stint in the UK military as an analyst principally looking at international terrorist networks, I completed research using complex modelling to study jaguar populations in Belize as part of my PhD. When I heard about the work that Langland were doing it was an obvious path and I haven’t looked back.” Langland’s methodology is inspired partly by military intelligence analysis, which draws on the team’s experience, and by fusing GIS (geographic information system software), data science, and academic tools in order to provide holistic support to protected area management. Military intelligence analysis provides timely insights derived from imperfect data to enable rapid decision-making. Such analysis is designed to provide advantage and to save lives. The key product is a Decision Support Overlay (DSO) which indicates key areas of interest enabling data collection to either be focussed or assessed so that an action can be put into place to achieve a greater effect. This DSO is designed to both allow and direct the collection of further information in order to create as detailed a picture as possible in a world of imperfect knowledge where decisive action is needed to achieve results. Langland Conservation merges the techniques used in the military analysis process with machine learning models, statistical analysis, and GIS modelling to understand the landscape through various lenses: including physical terrain, human landscape, wildlife, criminality, and threat to patrols. Multiple data feeds are layered to generate insights that help teams on the ground and stakeholders in park management to make decisions about deploying scarce resources in difficult areas. Langland’s Landscape Integration Analysis Packs takes disparate and messy datasets and systematically layer them so as to identify patterns and interrelationships between them.
“We firstly undertake a basic analysis of physical environment to understand the effects that the ground has on patrols, wildlife and criminality within the park” says Alice. “The analysis is conducted by collating data provided by partners and by finding open-source resources to fill in any data gaps.” The Langland team typically maps previous patrolling patterns and provides a clear picture of how physical terrain provides a barrier to movement, using Python code to compare terrain to movement. Further analysis uses patrol data (including SMART), transect data from scientific surveys, and a range of open source and subscription services ranging from social media reporting on conflict to NASA data on fires and high-resolution satellite imagery. This provides additional layers including patrols, wildlife, population growth, human-wildlife interaction, criminality, and threat. One innovative method for making sense of the eye-watering amount of available data is Langland’s use of hex bins. “We essentially subdivide the geographical area of interest into hexagonal blocks into which we ‘pour and store’ data,” says Pradipty Bharwaj, Langland’s cyber wildlife crime specialist, who is based in Bengaluru, India. “We have written code to count the number of events that occur in a ‘bin’ and use this aggregated data to make deductions, visualise using ArcGIS, and run statistical analyses. We can also provide simple visual records of past events which anti-poaching patrols on the ground can download to a device to enable them to have an instant record of previous activity whenever and wherever they are on a patrol, both on and offline.” Partnerships continue to be built with innovative technology providers so as to find smarter ways to understand Issue 3 November 2023 | 4
the most challenging environments where those at the frontline of conservation seek to protect biodiversity. “We have been struck by the imbalance in conservation investment between those areas where tourism and relative ease of movement make conservation easier; and the most challenging areas where the most endangered species tend to receive the least support” says Matt Heaven, Langland’s founder, and CEO. “The first project we supported, and what really started Langland Conservation, was in West Africa, where some of the world’s last desert-adapted elephants were facing increasing pressure from growing human populations and competition for resources, and where the rangers protecting the elephants were facing not just well-armed poachers, but also a complete collapse in security and active targeting of the anti-poaching units (APUs) by Islamic State and Al Qaeda groups, who regarded the APUs as government forces. Thanks to the work of people on the ground who understand the complexities of protecting endangered species in shared ecosystems, and through the employment of innovative technology and techniques, these animals and landscapes have a fighting chance”. ■ Find out more about Langland Conservation and get in touch. Find out more about Chengeta Wildlife. Matt Heaven Matt Heaven is founder and CEO of Langland Conservation. Langland provides analytical and operational support to conservation projects and counter illegal wildlife trade investigations across the world.
| Innovations In The Field |
Extraterrestrial Journeys: Michale Murphy, an anthropologist, sets out to study how astronaut identities are impacted by journeys in space I am lying in a rice field in Korea at 3 am. Six-and-a-half thousand miles from where I was born, I feel adrift. My journey has taken me here. Staring up at the stars, I wonder how astronauts must feel, drifting so far from everything they’ve ever known. For nearly a decade, I have been studying how journeys change people–particularly prolonged, crisis-ridden journeys that make you
question who you are. So far, my work has been with forced migrants, those who have no home to go back to. Beginning in August though, my focus will shift to the stars. In my research, I have seen how migrants are changed by emergency experiences on their journeys. Their extreme conditions force them to reconsider cultural norms. Meanwhile, what was ‘home’ has changed in their absence. A unique form of homelessness develops when the traveller and home have lost each other through disparate growth. Issue 3 November 2023 | 5
However, we know very little about the impacts of extraterrestrial journeys on astronauts. They are psychologically evaluated, yes, but do journeys in space change them? Can one ever be the same after being alienated entirely from their home, species, and planet? For instance, the Overview Effect is a well-known cognitive shift that some astronauts have reported upon seeing the whole earth in one viewing. Additionally, over the years, various astronauts have described being, “no longer earthlings”1 and
| Innovations In The Field |
ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt follows training lessons at the European Astronaut Centre in Colgone, Germany. The training programme involves how to live and work in space, and meet the high standards required for human space flight. (Photo: ESA - P. Sebirot)
“untranslatable to one’s self”2. Like a war veteran or someone who has undergone spiritual awakening, the transformative experience of being beyond Earth cannot be explained, it can only be experienced. Part of the reason this research is difficult is that researchers cannot go to space with astronauts and observe changes in real-time. However, I believe I have found a way to be with astronauts as they undergo this process.
Analogoue Missions I am currently working with the University College London Space Health Risk Research Group (SHHR), and the Ethnographies of an Extra-terrestrial Society: the International Space Station project (Ethno-ISS) in order to answer these questions through an analogue mission. Analogue missions are common training exercises that teach astronauts skills before they go to space. Examples include geological sampling, experiencing low-gravity environments, and testing hardware.
reaction or a broken bone. Emergency simulations will last for 8 hours each, meaning that caretakers will need navigate relapses, biological needs, and shelter. SHRR is trying to create standardised care practices when the nearest hospital is 250,000 miles away. Meanwhile, I will be studying the impacts of these emergencies in settings of communal alienation. When astronauts are completely removed from the planet and cultural rules are discarded in favour of saving someone’s life, how does this catalyse a change in identity?
Getting into the minds of Astronauts In addition to interviewing the astronauts, I will have each astronaut journal for at least 15 minutes per day with pen and paper, encouraging them to write freely, illustrate, and incorporate other media as needed. By reading their experiences, margin notes, scribbles, and doodles, I can get as close to their minds as possible. The process of creating a narrative out of their experiences forces them to reflect on how they have been impacted. This subjective data will heavily complement my objective observation data. Then, I can trace any changes that develop and compare them to interview data,
Analogue missions offer an opportunity for social sciences to study the impacts of journeys in space-like conditions because astronauts are made to feel like they are on another planet. This is a first step to understanding how actual space travel might impact astronauts’ self-conceptualization. As I am writing this, Virgin Galactic has finished its final test flight before allowing private tours in space. Space X is hot on its tail. Space is no longer the domain of governments, as private markets drive a second space race. It is critical that we understand the impacts of journeys, emergencies, and extreme alienation on astronauts. ■ Michael Murphy Michael is an anthropologist and photographer. He studies how extreme journeys change people, focusing on ritual, identity, and crises. He has worked with refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants
The moon and Venus over a Korean rice field (Photo: Michael Murphy)
For two weeks, I will join other researchers as we observe six analogue astronauts completing mission objectives and navigating health hazards. The astronauts will land on an isolated island with shelter and limited supplies. They will have very limited contact with other humans, primarily the researchers who are observing them from afar. Even that contact will have a 17-minute delay–the time it takes for a message to reach Mars. The astronauts will conduct a geological survey and scout for additional landing sites. As part of Space Health Risk Research’s (SHRR) mission design, they will also be prompted to simulate medical emergencies that require prolonged care, such as an allergic
as well as triangulating different astronauts’ accounts.
References: 1 Lebedev, V. (1990). Diary of a Cosmonaut: 211 Days in Space. Bantam Books. 2 Linengar, J. (2001). Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir. McGraw-Hill.
Issue 3 November 2023 | 6
| In-country connections |
Instrument glitches in a global pandemic: Interview with Dr Neil Humpage, Earth Observation scientist specialising in Methane and Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. Issue 3 November 2023 | 7
| In-country connections |
William Okello of NaFIRRI, helping to set up our weather station (photo by Neil Humpage)
Earth observation scientists look at airborne and satellite measurements to monitor and improve understanding of Earth’s environment. Neil is particularly interested in the sources of methane in Earth’s atmosphere and the carbon cycle in tropical Africa. Whilst the work requires a lot of sitting at a computer screen, there are field trips involved to “ground-truth the datasets”. I talked to Neil about the impact of Covid on this ground-truthing fieldwork.
researchers at NaFIRRI to support the running of, and data extraction of the field equipment. There was also preparation and work involved in bringing this specialist equipment into the country, particularly bringing it through Customs. The equipment largely consisted of a spectrometer which measures light from the Sun. For this research it was targeted to look at the specific wavelengths where light is absorbed by the methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide gases the researchers were interested in. By measuring how much light is absorbed at those wavelengths, the
In January 2020 Neil embarked on a field trip to Jinja in Uganda, on the northern shore of Lake Victoria. The purpose of the field trip was to set up some equipment – a Bruker EM27/SUN spectrometer - to take measurements of methane as well as carbon dioxide and other trace gases. The goal was to set up the equipment to run for a year, with minimal intervention.
Why Uganda? Tropical wetlands are one of the most important natural sources of methane. Over 10% of Uganda’s land surface is covered by wetlands, so it is a great location for getting methane measurements.
What was required for preparing the fieldwork? Far in advance of the expedition contacts in Jinja were established. Neil and his colleagues at the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) in the UK worked with Ugandan researchers at the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI) in the planning of the experiments, what would be required in terms of equipment installation and the skilled Issue 3 November 2023 | 8
researchers are able to estimate with a very good degree of accuracy the total column concentration of these gases in the air overhead. The goal was to deploy a fully automated measurement system, enabling data collection without the need for humans after set-up had been completed. Finding a good place to put the instrument is tricky. It requires a flat surface with clear sightlines to the Sun throughout the day and access
The spectrometer with its rain cover open, allowing observations of the Sun (photo by Neil Humpage)
| In-country connections |
Neil Humpage setting up the enclosure (photo by William Okello)
to a power supply. In the end the roof at NaFIRRI proved to be a good spot and the equipment was put in place with the help of a crane! The robustness of the equipment was also an aspect that required advanced planning – it had to have an automated weatherproof enclosure designed for it by researchers at the Technical University of Munich to protect the instrument. The challenge was to design protection from the rain, while still enabling it to take measurements in sunny weather. So, it had a retractable dome that was triggered by a rain sensor.
Was the field trip successful? Yes, Neil and the colleagues from NaFIRRI able to get the equipment installed and up and running. That element was planned to take a week, which they found was the right amount of time, but Neil stressed it was only possible in that timeframe due to the extensive advance preparation work. During that period Neil reflected that it gave a chance for him to get to know his Ugandan colleagues, whom he’d only met digitally previously, in person. It helped him to understand their motivations and also provided opportunities to socialise in person, to get to know each other not just in a work context and to establish a good rapport, to build trust.
was already in place and colleagues at NaFIRRI were able to keep an eye on it.
Yes and no…
However, equipment in the field is rarely a smooth ride. Inevitably problems occurred and due to the pandemic travel restrictions, when they did, Neil was unable to go out and fix it. This is where the experience of meeting in person previously really helped. William Okello and Neil quickly found that video calls on WhatsApp worked well for identifying what was wrong and working step by step together apart to work out how best to fix the equipment.
Neil said that the team was lucky with the timing, that they managed to get the equipment set-up field trip completed before lock downs started. Due to the way they had set up and planned the work, when Covid struck, the equipment
Although eventually the equipment had to be shipped back to Europe to be fixed Neil reflects that a combination of that initial visit and the exchange of knowledge through the period of Covid meant
When Covid struck, did it impact what you were doing?
Issue 3 November 2023 | 9
that he didn’t need to go out with the equipment once it was ready to be reinstalled, that William was comfortable in setting up the equipment and that they could work as a digital team, doing the fine tuning together over video calls to get everything going again.
What does the equipment enable you to find out? Despite the technical hitches and a global pandemic, the data provided is actually the first ground-based observations of greenhouse gas (GHG) column concentrations over tropical East Africa. The instrument, once fixed, ran nearcontinuously for 3 months, observing total atmospheric column concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane, along with other gases of interest including water vapour and carbon monoxide.
| In-country connections |
Neil explained that the column measurement is particularly useful for studying regional sources and sinks as it picks up the air as it passes over the instrument. As well as being useful for improving understanding of methane emissions from wetlands, the instrument enabled simultaneous measurements of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide which can help to improve understanding of Uganda’s greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel consumption, transport, and fires. These column measurements not only help reveal information about levels of methane and carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, but they can also be used to help validate measurements of these gases by satellites. Satellites can take measurements from places hard to get to and/or in extreme environments for establishing groundbased equipment. However, the satellite data needs to be checked against known, robust measurements. This is where measurements like these get used. They can be compared with
the satellite data taken over the same location and time to identify biases and uncertainties within the satellite data. With the data collected, the research team was able to evaluate the performance of carbon dioxide observations from from NASA’s OCO2 satellite, and methane observations from the European Sentinel-5P and Japanese GOSAT satellites. Neil is a member of a large research project called MOYA -Methane Observations and Yearly Assessments (MOYA) – which is a consortium of UK scientists funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to examine the global atmospheric methane budget. They are using measurements from instruments on the ground around the world, such as those collected in Jinja, and remote observation, to understand the relative importance of the many different processes – both natural and anthropogenic – which are affecting the recent trends in global concentrations of atmospheric methane. ■
If you are interested in the science, here are a couple of references: ⊲ Humpage, N. et al 2021 Greenhouse gas column observations from a portable spectrometer in Uganda, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-10156, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphereegu21-10156 ⊲ Heinle, L. and Chen, J. (2018) Automated enclosure and protection system for compact solartracking spectrometers, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 2173–2185, https:// doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2173-2018
Interviewer Briony Turner Briony Turner is a Council member and Trustee of the Scientific Exploration Society. She has conducted fieldwork in Botswana and Tanzania and works with climate scientists in her day job.
A schematic diagram showing some of the different greenhouse gas sources we expect to observe and investigate
Issue 3 November 2023 | 10
| Mind matters & bodily functions in the field |
Cold-associated injuries in Antarctica: a brief discussion on ‘polar thigh’ Hartley RH1 Reid P2 Pallett SJC3,4 Hartley RH 1. Base Doctor, Rothera Research Station, British Antarctic Survey, Adelaide Island, Antarctica Reid P 2. Independent Pallett SJC 3. Centre of Defence Pathology, Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, B15 2WB, UK. 4. Infection Clinical Academic Group, St George’s Hospital, London, UK.
Scott J C Pallet ORCRD: 0000-0002-9465-5299 Received: 30 March 2014 Revised: 29 May 2023 Accepted: 1 June 2023 Available online: 2nd November 2023. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.10065471
1. Background In 2022, almost one hundred and seven years after it was lost to pack ice, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance Issue 3 November 2023 | 11
was discovered in the Weddell Sea. Shackleton’s exploits in one of the harshest environments on earth is an epic story of survival and solid leadership, his name becoming essentially synonymous with the spirit of endurance.1-3 The inherent risk of extended polar travel from the extreme cold are perhaps best summarised by the explorer himself, forewarning potential companions of embarking “without the prospect of any speedy return, and with reasonable probability of no return at all”,4 the underlying sentiment of which continues to be relevant today.
| Mind matters & bodily functions in the field |
equipment and clothing have undoubtedly improved the safety profile since the days of Shackleton, considerable risk remains. Sudden changes in inclement weather conditions, momentary lapses in self-administration or failure of kit designed to protect against the extreme cold can all result in serious cold injuries with potential limb or life-threatening consequences. Cold injury broadly refers to conditions from hypothermia to a series of freezing such as. frostbite and non-freezing cold injuries such as pernio/chilblains affecting skin and soft-tissues,7-8 all of which have been described in detail from accounts of Antarctic expeditions of the heroic age.9
Navigating across in alpine glacier at the northern edge of the Rocky Mountains, Canada
In the years since, fascination with polar travel has continued. Ongoing scientific activity in Antarctica has global significance and as such is protected under the Antarctic Treaty, with key activities ranging from monitoring of climate change to serving as an earth analogue for space travel.5-6 For those drawn to the challenge, explorers, endurance athletes and adventurers continue to seek to test themselves in ever more daring journeys. While advances in communications, travel, nutrition, and the technology behind personnel
The available literature on cold injuries remains limited. A recent British military case series highlights a change in presenting symptoms for non-freezing cold injuries since those described during the World Wars, and is a useful reminder that such injuries can occur following even short periods of exposure to the cold and are not limited to polar travel.10 In contrast, literature describing coldassociated injuries such as ‘polar thigh’ are virtually non-existent. A pubmed search for example using the search terms ‘arctic’, ‘antarctic’, ‘polar’, ‘thigh’ and/or ‘injury’ was unable to identify any peer-reviewed literature. The following brief discussion aims to provide some context to the previous articles in this edition of Exploration Revealed and provide a short introduction to this rare but potentially significant risk of polar travel.11
2. Polar thigh In the absence of peer-reviewed research, the best available information on polar thigh is perhaps limited to expert opinion, being discussed most fully in Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine where it is considered an issue specific to polar skiing expeditions.12 It is described there as the development of an “erythematous and frequently urticarial rash”12 that most often affects the anterior thigh. While strongly associated with exposure to Issue 3 November 2023 | 12
extreme cold environments, expert opinion from management of the limited number of cases is that the constant abrasion from overlying materials in the context of cold exposure are likely to be key drivers of injury.12 This is reflected by reports of polar thigh almost exclusively in those undertaking long-distance arduous polar journeys and while this is in keeping with the authors personal experience, the level of available research at present is observational.11 While available data is considerably scarce, recent publicly available cases have seemed to be reported among women undertaking prolonged expeditions in Antarctica.,13-15 Whether this reflects mechanical or immunometabolism factors that may be a higher risk in women or is a biased observation due to so few cases is unclear and would require formal research to explore further. Accepted prevention measures include the use of a silk base layer and an insulated down skirt. Use of emollient creams or aloe vera gels to help reduce friction have also been recommended; aloe vera has the advantage of being a potent anti-prostaglandin.12 Once a rash is realised, meticulous adjustments to clothing to reduce abrasion is paramount while some researchers have suggested there may be benefit in use of topical corticosteroid creams.12 If early preventative measures are ineffective and abrasion continues then blistering and frank ulceration can develop which may require medical repatriation and review by a plastic surgeon.12-15 Decision for repatriation may be dependent on many factors and should follow informed discussion between the individual and their medical support (Figure 1). Once ulceration occurs steroid creams should be avoided, with limited evidence for benefit and delay to healing a recognised potential side-effects.16 Suitable dressings, for example a low-adherent, sterile, paraffin open weave gauze have been advised instead.12 Wound healing is likely to take several
| Mind matters & bodily functions in the field |
months even in uncomplicated cases (see reference 11 in this edition of Explore Revealed for a thorough discussion on the development of a case of polar thigh and its potential psychological and long-term impact on the expeditioner), and may result in permanent scarring. Perhaps surprisingly, infection rarely occurs and antibiotics are not routinely indicated.12 Expert consensus among other authors on antibiotic use in cold injury in general highlight a lack of evidence for routine use of antibiotics but highlight their potential role in severe injury or where there are signs of emerging cellulitis or sepsis.17 Additionally, an opportunity to swab lesions prior to any antibiotics for microscopy, culture and sensitivities may prove invaluable should any surgical intervention be
“It is a very personal and contextual decision whether to continue with polar thigh. Personally, I am happy with my decision to continue to ski for a further 39 days, despite the management my thighs needed for four months on my return. I now have scars on both thighs, but no decrease in functionality and my scars act as a reminder of my challenging journey and human achievement.”
required further down the line. Where ulceration has occurred however, individuals should remain vigilante for emerging signs of infection including spreading erythema, swelling, pain and pus with or without fever. If infection develops, given the location of injury, complicated recovery process, and risk of developing sepsis in a remote location urgent medical advice should be sought. In this circumstance broad spectrum antibiotics to cover both common skin gram positive organisms (such as Staphylococcus aureus) and gut gram negative organisms (such as E.coli, Klebsiella spp., Citrobacter spp.) may be indicated and should follow individualised medical advice. In this circumstance, an antibiotic such
Figure 1. A personal account of managing with polar thigh while on expedition to the South Pole from Paula Reid. Camped at the base of the Hardangerjøkulen
Issue 3 November 2023 | 13
| Mind matters & bodily functions in the field |
as amoxicillin-clavulanic acid may be a suitable initial empiric choice. On return to the UK advice should be sought from specialist centres (for example, the Institute of Naval Medicine for uniformed personnel or expert authors with experience of managing cases of polar thigh as cited here)12 with advice from microbiology prior to any treatment for infection.
3. Summary While it remains unclear, polar thigh is thought to be an injury that occurs following constant mechanical abrasion while skiing in extreme cold environments. Prevention efforts focus on measures to reduce friction from clothing or equipment. Injuries can develop to cause severe ulceration, risking the need
for medical evacuation. Literature is considerably limited and further reporting on successful preventative measures and clinical outcomes could be helpful to further delineate this risk to those planning prolonged polar travel. In the meantime those intending to travel should familiarise themselves with the polar medicine chapter of Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine. ■
This article should be referenced as: Hartley, R.H., Reid, P. and Pallett, S.J.C. (2023). ‘Cold-associated injuries in Antarctica: a brief discussion on ‘polar thigh’’, Exploration Revealed no.3, pp.9-11. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.10065471
Declarations Authors’ contributions RHM is currently working as a doctor providing medical support to the British Antarctic Survey out of at Rothera Research Station. PR is a polar expeditioner with personnel experience of managing polar thigh. SJCP is a British Army medical officer, currently undertaking specialist training in infectious diseases and
microbiology. SJCP drafted the initial manuscript. All authors contributed significantly to revising this for submission. All authors agreed on the final version for submission to the journal. Funding There was no additional/specific funding associated with this study.
Ethical approval and consent to participate No patient level data has been included in this manuscript. Potential conflicts of interests SJCP has received a research grant from the Scientific Exploration Society. All other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
References: 1. Piggot JR. Shackleton’s men: life on Elephant Island. Endeavour. 2004;28(3):114-9. doi: 10.1016/j.endeavour.2004.07.009. 2. Escudero D, Boga JA, Fernández J, Forcelledo L, Balboa S et al. SARS-CoV-2 analysis on environmental surfaces collected in an intensive care unit: keeping Ernest Shackleton’s spirit. Intensive Care Med Exp. 2020; 8(1):68. doi: 10.1186/s40635-020-00349-5. 3. Morrel M, Capparell S. Shackleton’s Way: Leadership lessons from the great Antarctic explorer. 2001. New York, Viking. 4. Shackleton E. Heart of the Antarctic. London. 1911. William Heinemann. 5. British Antarctic Survey, UK Foreign Commonwealth Office, Royal Geographical Society with IBG. Discovering Antarctica. https:// discoveringantarctica.org.uk/how-is-antarctica-governed/geopolitics/science-of-antarctica/. Last accessed 02 Jan 2023. 6. Lugg DJ. Behavioral health in Antarctica: implications for long-duration space missions. Aviat Space Environ Med. 2005; 76(6):B74-7. 7. Freer L, Handford C, Imray CHE. . Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine: 7th Edition – Chapter 9 Frostbite. 2016. Elvesier 8. Imray CHE, Handford C, Thomas OD, Castellani JW. Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine: 7th Edition – Chapter 10 Nonfreezing coldinduced injuries. 2016. Elsevier. 9. Guly HR. Frostbite and Other Cold Injuries in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Wilderness Environ Med. 2012; 23(4):365-70. doi: 10.1016/j.wem.2012.05.006. 10. Kuht JA, Woods D, Hollis S. Case series of non-freezing cold injury: the modern clinical syndrome. BMJ Mil Health. 2020;166:324– 329. doi:10.1136/jramc-2018-001099. 11. Miller E. Exploration Revealed Interview with Adventurer and Adventure Psychologist, Paula Reid. Explor Rev. 2023. 12. Rhodes M, Sorenson HC. Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine: 7th edition – Chapter 11: Polar Medicine (medical problems), pages 246247. 2016. Elvesier. 13. Scottish News. Scots athlete struck with rare ‘Polar Thigh’ injury on trek to South Pole. https://www.scotsman.com/news/scottishnews/scots-athlete-struck-rare-polar-thigh-injury-trek-south-pole-1380397. Last accessed 04 Jan 23. 14. Edinburgh News. Youngest woman to ski solo to the South Pole Mollie Hughes returns home to Edinburgh. https://www. edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/people/youngest-woman-ski-solo-south-pole-mollie-hughes-returns-home-edinburgh-1373420. Last accessed 04 Jan 23. 15. Explorers Web. Antarctica 2017: Summiting Spectre and the Long Walk Home. https://explorersweb.com/antarctica-2017summiting-spectre-and-the-long-walk-home-2017-12-15-6170/. Last accessed 04 Jan 23. 16. Yoshino Y, Ohtsuka M, Kawaguchi M, Sakai K, Hashimoto A et al. Wound/Burn Guidelines Committee. The wound/burn guidelines - 6: Guidelines for the management of burns. J Dermatol. 2016; 43(9):989-1010. doi: 10.1111/1346-8138.13288. 17.Jin HX, Teng Y, Dai J, Zhao XD; Members of the Emergency Medicine Committee of the People’s Liberation Army. Expert consensus on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cold injury in China, 2020. Mil Med Res. 2021 Jan 21;8(1):6. doi: 10.1186/s40779-02000295-z.
Issue 3 November 2023 | 14
| Mind matters & bodily functions in the field |
Paula at the South Pole (photo: Paula Reid)
Exploration Revealed Interview with Adventurer and Adventure Psychologist, Paula Reid Paula Reid is an adventurer and an adventure psychologist. Emma Miller, Health and Wellbeing editor caught up with Paula to get an adventurer’s view on the wellbeing benefits alongside the adversity, struggle, pain and discomfort associated with adventuring in extreme environments.
The South Pole expedition you took in 2019 stands out. I would love to hear some of the challenges you faced, and how you dealt with them. This was such a big experience. I had a year of full-on training; skiing in Norway, camping in the snow, health, nutrition, using specialised equipment, cooking Issue 3 November 2023 | 15
inside the tent, cold weather hygiene. The physical training included tyre-pulling and a lot of core strength and muscle building. When you finally land in Antarctica, it is surreal. It’s a huge continent, a mile or two thick with snow and ice. We started with a shake down ski, out and back from the main base to make sure the equipment was working.
| Mind matters & bodily functions in the field |
Then we were dropped off by plane on the coast of Antarctica where the land mass stops, but the ice shelf continues. Skiing from there to 90 degrees south, would take us 46 days. Starting was great. I was fit, ready and keen to crack on. But the first week was really difficult. I fell over a lot. We had falling snow and whiteouts so you could hardly see, and sastrugi (ridged snow), which is quite hard to ski over pulling 80 kilograms uphill into the -40’C wind. I wasn’t the most graceful skier in the whole world. I was struggling. On day seven, I got polar thigh, a non-freezing cold injury, and it was a disaster. This is normally an immediate trigger for medical evacuation and would end the expedition. I’d never get to the South Pole. While they were organising the rescue, I had two days to think. Most of it was negative self-talk; how useless I was, how rubbish I’d been, how disastrous it was. I’d done all that training and preparation and I wasn’t going get to the South Pole. Late on that second day, we’d been skiing about eight hours and I was completely deflated. I remember having a fresh, positive voice coming to my head. It said, “Paula, who says you’ve got to quit? Why don’t you carry on? See how far you get. You’re not a quitter, you’re strong, you’re tough. You’ve got this.” It was amazing. Both contradictory voices were mine; one was negative and one was realistically optimIstic. I decided to crack on.
was almost dancing on my skis, which is difficult! I was playing pumped up music through my earbuds and when that worked and I was feeling okay, I’d be in a flow state, feeling pumped, energised, relatively happy and motivated.
experienced all three during the whole expedition, for sure.
Most of the time I was just coping. I played games inside of my head to mentally divert myself. Sometimes I’d concentrate on the actual skill of skiing. You don’t interact when you’re skiing to the South Pole. I was in a team of five and you ski single file. It’s quite a lonely and relentlessly demanding expedition.
If you compare it to non-expedition life, we still experience those three states, but perhaps they’re gentler. Sometimes we’re languishing if we’ve got a lot of comfort going on in our life. And of course, that’s very appealing to most people, but I believe in proactively putting myself into an adventure, which might include adversity, struggle, pain or discomfort. I sense that it’s good for me.
Faced with such adversity, how were you able to find moments with bliss, joy and presence? I talk about three different states that we can be in on these expeditions; surviving, coping or thriving. On that expedition I definitely had days and times when I was in survival mode, which was just dragging myself along, frozen face, very uncomfortable, in pain, just literally trying to get one foot in front of another. At other times I was coping, when my resources met the demands of the situation. Other times I felt I was really thriving, feeling madly energised, absolutely on top of the world! The wonder, awe, beauty, and the fact I was actually skiing to South Pole! I
I carried on for another 39 days. On day 46 with two nasty looking legs, I got to the South Pole! The sense of accomplishment, despite the adversity, was massive. I remember trying not to cry because tears freeze on your face. I had huge pride in my heart, joy and accomplishment that I’d achieved it despite all the odds.
How did you continue the expedition, suffering with polar thigh, for a further 39 days? It was a struggle. Some days were worse than others. I used different strategies for coping. Some days I felt okay and Issue 3 November 2023 | 16
That is a powerful reframe. How has that informed how you approach expeditions?
I also learn, develop and grow more when I’m on expeditions. I strengthen and toughen up my mental and physical muscles. And there’s the immersion, fully experiencing the world in all of its amazing glory and differences - you know, incredibly diverse and incredibly amazing experiences that I wouldn’t want to miss.
Polar Thigh 14 weeks after returning to UK (photo: Paula Reid)
| Mind matters & bodily functions in the field |
Pulling her pulk (photo: Paula Reid)
It sounds like expeditions really help you cultivate peak experiences; those moments of thriving in more of a vibrant, intense, joyful way? Yes, but along with the extreme opposite of that, which is all the adversity and trauma and pain and difficulty and fear. But at least I’m living and I’m living fully! I embrace all those experiences. I kind of enjoy it, but not in a weird way, just in a way of that I feel like I’m fully alive. I feel like I’m being pushed. I dig deep to find out what I’m made of. I’m passionate about that. Life is too comfortable these days, we need some struggle to mould ourselves into a better version of ourselves and to really appreciate the fullness of life. That is a gift really isn’t it? Life’s a gift and I’m trying to make the most of it and do it justice.
How have these experiences influenced your work? You created the discipline Adventure Psychology. What has your journey been with Adventure Psychology and how would you define it? It’s a physical challenge to ski to the South Pole and, superficially, you would think it was all about the physical and practical training. But on expedition, I felt and experienced how it was 90% of a mental challenge. When I was having a down day mentally, my performance, happiness, mental and physical energy dropped off a cliff. So, after the South Pole trip, I decided to study psychology. I did a Masters’ Degree (MSc.) in Applied Positive Psychology. It was fascinating. On the foundation of Issue 3 November 2023 | 17
positive psychology, i.e., what makes human beings optimally function and flourish, I built Adventure Psychology; how we endure optimally; how we flourish and maintain our wellbeing and perform in challenging conditions. I believe life is tough, and we’re all on a journey; personally, professionally, as a business, community, system, or human being. I think a lot of us have lost the skills we need to deal with the difficulties of life. So that’s what I do now. How can we introduce some struggle into our life so that we can learn from that and get mentally and physically fitter and tougher?
What advice would you have for other explorers and adventurers for integrating adventure psychology, optimal performance and wellbeing on their expeditions?
| Mind matters & bodily functions in the field |
Paula and her kit (photo: Paula Reid)
They must include psychology and mental training in their prep. So many adventures are focusing on the physically explicit stuff; the kit and the training. Many don’t think about the psychology of what they’re about to do before they leave, or learn, prepare, or have tools up their sleeve for when it gets tough. There are tools and exercises you can do pre-departure to mentally prepare such as: ⊲ Anticipatory thinking ⊲ Crisis planning ⊲ Scenario planning: worst case, best case, then likely case, scenarios ⊲ Create a list of anxieties or concerns, then divide the risks from the fears. Create risk management strategies for the external objective risks, and separately plan personal, subjective fear management strategies (there are many)
⊲ Define success and failure in advance ⊲ Define ‘quitting criteria’ ⊲ Goal setting – from small SMART ones to visionary ones* ⊲ Work out your segmentation (how to divide your expedition into bitesize chunks) and data inputs (how are you going to measure progress and what data may motivate you?) ⊲ Plan communications, social support and rewards There are also plenty of psychological exercises to do during- and postexpedition but we haven’t the space to go into them all, here are three key ones: ⊲ Have a buddy, who is constructive or helpful to check in with, and to support you. Your buddy can, ask some useful questions to reframe when things get tough ⊲ Generally, facilitate an optimistic Issue 3 November 2023 | 18
mindset with hopeful but feasible resilience and strength ⊲ Create structural habits and routines on expedition that support your mental and physical health Paula’s new book: “Adventure Psychology: Going Knowingly into the Unknown” is available for purchase from Routledge
Inverviewer Emma Miller Emma Miller is a Wellbeing Specialist, Positive Psychology Coach MSc., Award Winning SES Explorer & Founder of Wellbeing Explorers facilitates Your Journey of Self-Mastery, and An Adventurous Way of Being.
| Expedition impact |
Medical Anthropology and Ethnopharmacology meets Community Work: The impact of my work and my hope for the future Issue 3 November 2023 | 19
I’m interested in working in the most remote regions of the world combined with my highly interdisciplinary, holistic, participatory, and sustainable approach to science has brought me into contact with numerous outstanding human beings, such as local traditional healers, experienced birth attendants, spiritualists, conservationists, and human rights activists. Many of these encounters
| Expedition impact |
Charity, wearing a green dress, speaks about medicinal plants with other Batwa community members. Fabien had asked the group for assistance as he showed them which plants were likely used by mountain gorillas for selfmedication. He, as an ethnopharmacologist, wants to know whether local humans also use the same plants for medicine. (Photo: Batwa community discussion © Inken Dworak-Schultz)
Locally, our joint research projects have a lasting impact on these communities. For example we interviewed 39 traditional healers from 29 remote villages in the Greater Mpigi region of Uganda regarding their use of medicinal plants for the treatment of various infectious and inflammatory diseases in the local traditional medicine system (Schultz et al., 2020b). The study included the first detailed report on the methods of preparation and application of 16 plants considered ‘understudied’ to treat a total of 75 medical disorders (Schultz et al., 2020b). These plants were thoroughly investigated in the laboratory to assess the pharmacological efficacy and safety (Schultz et al., 2021a, Schultz et al., 2020a, Schultz et al., 2021c, Schultz et al., 2021d, Schultz, 2021). The results were subsequently shared with the 39 healers via a 2-day workshop as a form of non-financial benefit sharing (Schultz et al., 2021b).
resulted in ongoing research collaborations that include bidirectional communication with indigenous communities. Our community projects address existing problems defined by these communities, e.g., the first-ever epidemiological investigation and education approach targeting the deadly and highly neglected Noma disease in young children, which is characterized by a case fatality
rate of 70-90% among 0- to 5-year-old children and leaves the faces of survivors badly disfigured. This in turns causes widespread shunning and discrimination due presumed connections with witchcraft and sorcery (Ahlgren et al., 2017, Baratti-Mayer et al., 2003, Enwonwu et al., 2006, Leila Srour et al., 2015, Lovelly, 2020, Marck, 2003, Srour et al., 2017).
Issue 3 November 2023 | 20
The global loss of traditional knowledge is alarming. Consequently, the conservation of cultural heritage is vital for future generations, both locally and on a global scale. This is crucial as we facing the need for more effective novel drugs, especially drugs derived from natural products. Our research projects address some of the greatest threats to global health today, including antibiotic resistance, malaria, cancer, inflammation, and related symptoms such as pain and fever. This is crucial as conventional drug therapies are increasingly limited and inefficacious. Wild mountain gorillas and chimpanzees are assumed to selfmedicate using a vast number of potential rainforest remedies. Humans
| Expedition impact |
can potentially learn from our closest animal ancestors. Two out of five plant species on the planet currently face extinction (Kew, 2020). Such plants should be viewed chemical libraries with unique active ingredients waiting to be discovered. The lab’s steadily growing extract library already encompasses over 500 unique extracts from more than 170 plant, insect, and mushroom species. This preserves important natural chemicals for drug discovery in the future, even if the species itself becomes extinct. We hope using our innovative research approach continues to have a strong impact bridging between the natural and social sciences.
Sharing an expedition highlight and a story from the field There is the human-interest element in our work, especially when being in the field. One’s priorities shift abruptly once one witnesses the tragic fates of individuals and even entire communities. I’ll relate one such example during the COVID-19 pandemic. A woman, who I knew, reached out to me to make an unexpected desperate plea. Charity is a strong, good-humored,
What does this chimpanzee know about medicine, and how can we learn from him? These questions are what Fabien and his team try to establish in a study on self-medication in wild chimpanzees and mountain gorillas. (Photo: A wild chimpanzee surrounded by various plants © Inken Dworak-Schultz)
inquisitive Batwa community member. The Batwas are a pygmy ethnic group of former forest-dwelling hunters and gatherers, who were the original inhabitants of the Great Lakes region in Central Africa. I first met Charity when she was heavily pregnant during our 2019 research work on the last remaining wild mountain gorillas in the Bwindi rainforest. Charity helped us by guiding her community through the many questions we had during our discussions about the rainforest species. Previously, we had observed animal self-medication behavior and collected numerous plant, insect, and mushroom species to evaluate them for pharmacological activity at the lab. We climbed up a hill to the very edge of the forest to visit the local Batwa community. We wanted to ask for their help in determining Issue 3 November 2023 | 21
whether the collected species were being used by humans as well. Despite being nine-months pregnant, Charity insisted on accompanying us all the way down the steep hill when we left the Batwa community again. The Ugandan government, during the 1990s, chased the few remaining Batwa out of the forests. This meant the Batwa became both internally displaced people as well as environmental refugees. Today, they experience pervasive and systematic discrimination both by Ugandan society and especially the government. Their rights as indigenous peoples are neither recognized, nor respected. The Batwa community that we visited live in extreme poverty at the edge of the forest in tiny, run-down clay huts on a small plot of hard-to-reach land. They used to live in the forest in total isolation but once they lost their original lands, they became very susceptible to disease and poverty. Charity told me that many members of her community suffer from a parasitical infestation called jiggers, tungiasis which can cause severe opportunistic bacterial infections,
| Expedition impact |
especially in children. Many Batwa children, Charity explained, had died recently due to these infections because the Batwa have no way to treat them. They are too poor to seek help in a hospital, so their sole method of treatment is using medicinal plants that they’d harvest in the nearby rainforest. Tragically the Batwa are forbidden to enter the forest to collect these plants due to COVID-19 pandemic and the fear that the mountain gorillas could be infected from human contact. Such moments cause one’s priorities to shift. Together with Charity and our own small NGO called ARUDEVO (www.arudevo.com), we started to collaborate with the NGO ‘Sole Hope’ (https://solehope.org). It specializes in the treatment of jiggers and education to promote its prevention. This “Jiggers Medical Intervention” project was a full success. Several adults from multiple Batwa communities and 123 children were treated sustainably. The parasites were removed, antibiotics were applied on the wounds to either treat or prevent secondary infections, and shoes were handed out for an improved foot hygiene. The parents of all the children were trained in the prevention of disease, the removal of these parasites, and the treatment of wounds in order to empower them to being able to help themselves in the future.
Questions exist regarding the ownership of biodiversity following the development and commercialization of pharmaceuticals. In the past, intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples have often not been recognized. The Nagoya Protocol (https://www.cbd. int/abs/) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (https://www.cbd. int) provided international agreements on financial benefit sharing. However, the non-financial benefits for local intellectual property right owners and the bidirectional transfer of knowledge back to the traditional healers who originally provided the respective ethnomedicinal information are arguably poorly defined. My research group has developed an innovative approach to the science of ethnopharmacology which could potentially be regarded a model of best practice. We conduct all the research ourselves. The research is structured like a cycle with the circle, commencing with anthropological and ethnomedicinal studies and expeditions to indigenous communities. Close collaboration provides the basis for the collection of species deep within the rainforest,
Helping to change perceptions and preconceived notions of the field of scientific exploration Unfortunately, the perception that scientific explorers, especially ethnopharmacologists, rarely return to the local communities to share their research results is largely true. The collection of samples and ethnomedicinal information from traditional healers and other community members frequently marks the end point of this one-sided collaboration. Laboratory studies may follow, leading to unique and significant discoveries which are of interest to the local study participants and could even empower them locally while fostering an equal partnership. Issue 3 November 2023 | 22
used by humans or animals for medicine, which are often completely unknown to science. Next, the lab produces extracts and undertakes pharmacological assessments of the species’ efficacy, which can lead to the isolation and identification of novel active ingredients (early-stage drug discovery). In the past, we have focussed on generating evidence of the species’s efficacy as a total, other than isolating active ingredients. However, our recent projects also include the identification of novel drug leads using modern techniques, such as AI. The research is brought full circle as the the results from all
Charity is a member of the Batwa community. During the pandemic, this Indigenous group was prohibited from entering the rainforest where they once lived and hunted. They have subsequently lost access to the medicinal plants they use. But they can’t afford to go to a hospital, causing jiggers, a horrible disease, to spread throughout this community. Charity does advocacy work to obtain help for her people. (Photo: Charity, a member of and advocate for the Batwa community © Inken Dworak-Schultz)
| Expedition impact |
stages of the project are transferred back to the indigenous communities that started the process. Our method for transferring scientific results back to indigenous peoples is has recently been published as a peerreviewed video article in the Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy and on YouTube (https://youtu.be/ Snjjleg78Oo). This last step can lead to the initiation of community projects, as it did with the Jiggers Medical Intervention in the Batwa communities. Each research stage is characterized by a close connection to and continuous open communication with local study participants on equal terms. Our method, as described in detail in the video (https://youtu.be/ Snjjleg78Oo) is just an example, and as always, scientists’ individual approaches must be adapted to the given circumstances with respect to local and indigenous peoples,
cultural backgrounds, or situations which emerge during various aspects of scientific exploration research globally. In ethnopharmacology, it remains a fact that very few scientific findings are transferred back to the traditional healers and indigenous peoples who originally laid the foundations for the advanced research endeavors. It is possible, for example, that subsequent laboratory studies could reveal that some medicinal plants pose a threat to local communities, because they are toxic and harmful to patients as a direct outcome of treatment. I believe it is the responsibility and moral duty of scientific explorers to contribute to knowledge transfer and feedback once a study is completed. It is imperative to treat local study participants as equals and they must benefit from the research undertaken in any way. It can involve assisting Issue 3 November 2023 | 23
Fabien peers into a thatched hut in rural Uganda. His research often starts by speaking to local traditional healers and comes full circle as he when he returns to them, to share his findings from the lab studies on the medicinal plants, mushrooms, and insects. (Photo: Field study in rural Uganda © Inken DworakSchultz)
to save local herbal drug use, caring and advocating for local communities, or creating and maintaining good relationships for future collaborations. ■
Fabien Schultz Fabien is an ethnopharmacologist, zoopharmacognosist, UCL visiting researcher, and EC50 – Fifty People Changing the World recipient, who conducts fieldwork on four continents. His lab is located at Neubrandenburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany.
| Expedition impact |
Assessing the active compounds in medicinal plant, insect, and mushroom species is no easy task which is why Fabien’s team uses the most sophisticated and innovative strategies to draw the healing secrets from the often highly understudied species that he and his team have collected in some of the world’s most remote places. (Photo: Filtration work in the laboratory © Inken Dworak-Schultz)
References Ahlgren, M., T. Funk, C. Marimo, C. Ndiaye, and Alfvén. “Management of Noma: Practice Competence and Knowledge among Healthcare Workers in a Rural District of Zambia.” Global Health Action 10, no. 1 (2017): 1340253. https://doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2017.1340253. Baratti-Mayer, D., B. Pittet, D. Montandon, I Bolivar, J. E. Bornand, S. Hugonnet, A. Jacquinet, and J Schrenzel. “Noma: An ‘Infectious’ Disease of Unknown Aetiology.” Lancet Infectious Diseases 3, no. 7 (2003): 419–31. https://doi. org/10.1016/s1473-3099(03)00670-4. Enwonwu, C. O., W. A. Falker, and R. S. Phillips. “Noma (Cancrum Oris).” The Lancet 368, no. 9530 (2006): 147–56. https://doi. org/10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69004-1. Kew (2020). State of the World’s Plants 2020. KEW Royal Botanical Gardens. Leila Srour, M., K. W. Marck, and D. Baratti-Mayer. “Noma: Neglected, Forgotten and a Human Rights Issue.” International Health 7, no. 3 (2015): 149–50. Lovelly, P. Noma (Disease) - Noma Disease, Source for Photo of Noma Survivor in Figure 2, 2020. Marck, K. W. “A History of Noma, the ‘Face of Poverty.’” Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 111, no. 5 (2003): 1702–7. https://doi. org/10.1097/01.Prs.0000055445.84307.3c. Schultz, F. “Ethnopharmacology of Medicinal Plants Traditionally Used in the Greater Mpigi Region, Uganda.” Doctoral Thesis, Technische Universität Berlin, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-12048. Schultz, F, G Anywar, C. L. Quave, and L. A. Garbe. “A Bibliographic Assessment Using the Degrees of Publication Method: Medicinal Plants from the Rural Greater Mpigi Region (Uganda).” Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2021, 6661565. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6661565. Schultz, F, G Anywar, H. Tang, F. Chassagne, J. T. Lyles, L. A. Garbe, and C. L. Quave. “Targeting ESKAPE Pathogens with Anti-Infective Medicinal Plants from the Greater Mpigi Region in Uganda.” Nature Scientific Reports, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67572-8. Schultz, F, G Anywar, B. Wack, C. L. Quave, and L. A. Garbe. “Ethnobotanical Study of Selected Medicinal Plants Traditionally Used in the Rural Greater Mpigi Region of Uganda.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 256 (2020): 112742. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2020.112742. Schultz, F, I. Dworak-Schultz, A. Olengo, G Anywar, and L. A. Garbe. “Transferring Ethnopharmacological Results Back to Traditional Healers in Rural Indigenous Communities – The Ugandan Greater Mpigi Region Example.” Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy(in Review)., n.d. Schultz, F, O. F. Osuji, A. Nguyen, G Anywar, J. R. Scheel, G. Caljon, L. Pieters, and L. A. Garbe. “Pharmacological Assessment of the Antiprotozoal Activity, Cytotoxicity and Genotoxicity of Medicinal Plants Used in the Treatment of Malaria in the Greater Mpigi Region in Uganda [Original Research].” Frontiers in Pharmacology, 12, no. 1410 (2020). Schultz, F, O. F. Osuji, B. Wack, G Anywar, and L. A. Garbe. “Antiinflammatory Medicinal Plants from the Ugandan Greater Mpigi Region Act as Potent Inhibitors in the COX-2 / PGH2 Pathway.” Plants 10, no. 2 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10020351. Schultz, F. “Die Ethnopharmakologie von Pflanzen Aus Uganda.” Nutrition News 4 (2021). Srour, M. L., K. W. Marck, and D. Baratti-Mayer. “Noma: Overview of a Neglected Disease and Human Rights Violation.” The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 96, no. 2 (2017): 268–74. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.16-0718.
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| Tales from the field |
The Unclimbed peaks of Eastern Tibet “A future alpine paradise with hundreds of unclimbed peaks”, I could barely hold my excitement as I read this quote by the revered Himalaya and Tibet explorer, Tamotsu Nakamura. The paradise he referred to, was the Gangga mountain range in the east of Sichuan Province, China. As I studied the photographs of sharp rock spires, I knew an expedition had to be mounted there. I had been working on an idea to explore Eastern Tibet with my Austrian friends, Gerald, and Judith, for quite some time – Gangga seemed a great way to go.
Together with two friends from Spain, Martin and Simon, we launched a three-week mission to find climbable lines. A very bumpy two-day minibus ride from Chengdu with fascinating views on Minya Gongka, once believed to be the highest mountain in the world, brought us to the provincial town of Garze, our base camp. The snowcapped spires of the Gangga Mountains were clearly visible from town. We settled for a majestic peak using the limited close photographs available. The Lama of the local monastery revealing its name to us – Dechok Phedrang, which loosely translates to “Palace of the highest Bliss”. Google Earth indicated the peaks altitude somewhere between 5,500 and 5,800m. Issue 3 November 2023 | 25
According to Nakamura, only one expedition, a Japanese one in 2005, had been in this region before and then for reconnaissance only. Hence pretty much all peaks were untouched. But as we approached Dechok Phedrang’s steep faces through a small valley, we encountered numerous traces of local yak herders having passed through. For centuries, these mountains and its passes had been part of Tibetan trade routes. Once we’d taken time to acclimatize ourselves on the surrounding hills, we settled on a large cave up a steep scree slope as our advance base camp. It was a majestic place. On our first night we woke up to a light earthquake, which made me suspiciously look at the huge icicles
| Tales from the field |
The Team successful on the summit after completing their first ascent
that were hanging from the ceiling above us. Large Tibetan vultures, with a wingspan wider than 2m circled around us – the landscape could not have been more pristine. The climbing difficulties increased significantly from our cave onwards. We slowly gain altitude climbing over tiny rock ledges and small bands of snow. But it was exhausting to progress in sometimes up to hip deep snow and not at all negligible avalanche danger. we finally reached the ridge midafternoon, after setting out early, one morning. In my mind, this ridge, was only a few more metres to the summit but I was suddenly woken out of my daydreams. We, stood at a sharp drop off, 200m of overhanging rock lurking between us and the summit pyramid. The “suspected” summit ridge did not lead to the main peak. It slowly dawned on us that we had approached the peak from the wrong side, or simpler – we had climbed the wrong peak. We realized that far away from any helicopter rescue, to continue, was a risk we couldn’t take.
We turned around frustrated, A Dechok Phedrong’s summit had to wait for another day. Once back in basecamp, we had time to reevaluate. we tried to find a potential route that would lead to the top by studying photographs and checking Google Earth. It was a recce hike by Simon and Martin, which revealed the missing clue. On a face, not visible from the approach valley, they found a snow couloir that led, via some intimidating seracs (glaciated
The ice, as if by design, offered a weakness, a small path that enabled us to overcome the obstacle and leading us straight to the summit ridge. This time, the correct one.
icefalls) straight to the summit. We decided, given the weather situation, to undertake a fast alpine approach without an intermediate camp. We began just after midnight, climbing most of the approach and the lower part of the face in total darkness. Again, the going was slow. The snow so deep and loose that at times I felt as if we climbed on sand. But balance and pure grit won out and we finally reached the Icefall which consisted of large overhanging blocs of ice creating a formidable barrier. But Simon’s instinct found a way through.
and reach that top. The steep slopes of Dechok Phedrang gave way on all sides to endless views of rock pinnacles. The altimeter was reading 5620m was that Nakamura had been right, the Alps of Tibet are a yet undetected and unexplored alpine paradise. ■
Climbing the final ice fall of Dechok Phedrang
Issue 3 November 2023 | 26
The final few steps to the top felt amazing, specifically the feeling of being the first person to walk here
A temple in Eastern Tibet
The adventure of the expedition is captured in the award-winning documentary “Tibetan Dreams” Paul Niel Paul is an Austrian explorer & adventurer.
| Tales from the field |
From Backyards to Beyond: The Surprising Odysseys of Radio-Tagged Hummingbirds In the warm flush of cities, the cosmopolitan hives of humanity, nature is a guest that we tolerate to varying degrees. We avoid tracking it into our homes; we allow trees to trim our streets and confine the rest to parks; we grow frustrated at the line of sugar ants snaking through the floorboards. But in
the tropical rainforest, we are the guests. Life exists in furious flares: the hoots of motmots and the trills of barbets at sunrise, the thunder of palm leaf abscissions, the scrabble of bats roosting in the ceiling after midnight. Fog unspools through the trees, thick and dampening and eerie. Morpho Issue 3 November 2023 | 27
butterflies dip past while a procession of toucanets tastes the banana offerings. The windows and doors are rarely closed; we shake out our boots in the mornings and drift off to sleep under mosquito nets. The sky is spattered with stars, if it’s clear enough for you to see it.
| Tales from the field |
Sunrise tiptoes across the biological station and nature reserve of Un Poco del Chocó, which is sandwiched between two of Ecuador’s biodiversity hotspots: the Chocó and the Tropical Andes. (Photo: Alyssa J. Sargent)
I’m lucky enough to conduct my fieldwork in South America, in countries where the wildlife is everpresent and all-encompassing. More importantly for me, this is where hummingbirds—the family of the world’s tiniest birds—are most congregated. These diminutive aviators have taken the Americas by storm, from Tierra del Fuego all the way to Alaska, colonizing stifling desert and alpine tundra and temperate forest alike. But when I’m in the heart of the Ecuadorian and Colombian cloud forests, surrounded by the thrum of hundreds of hummingbirds darting past, I am in awe like nowhere else. There is something deeply enchanting about these birds, and there are no animals I’d rather study for my PhD.
Hummingbirds are evolutionary marvels and scientific enigmas. They range tenfold in size; they sport outlandish crests and sweeping tail feathers; they are not just a single shade, but thousands all at once. With hollow, air-filled organelles called “melanosomes” layering their feathers, their iridescent plumage shimmers and transforms depending on your very angle of view—from onyx to tourmaline, beryl to sapphire, in less than a second. But their palette extends well beyond our comprehension: under a blacklight, their feathers glow. Hummingbirds don’t just wear the ultraviolet spectrum—courtesy of an additional type of cone in their eyes, they can even see it. For birds tiny enough to fit into our palms, hummingbirds are capable of remarkable feats. They can reach forward flight speeds of 50 kilometers per hour—decimating Usain Bolt’s top speed of 43—and, while diving, can withstand g-forces that would knock out most fighter jet pilots. They can fly backwards and upside down; they
Issue 3 November 2023 | 28
can even beat their wings 93 times in a second, with each flap fourteen times faster than the blink of an eye! Hummingbirds are a constant reminder that grandeur comes in the smallest of packages. Of course, grand does not necessarily mean sweet. Beyond the blossoms, the air is rife with combat as sugarfueled silhouettes stab and pluck at one another. Competition for resources is a unifying struggle across the animal kingdom, and hummingbirds face fierce races for ephemeral floral nectar while balancing some of the highest metabolic demands of all vertebrates. They must weigh their choices carefully. Whom to attack? Where to travel? Does it pay off to stay near home, saving energy for inevitable battle, or to fly further afield— facing new threats—to find food?
A Stripe-throated Hermit (Phaethornis striigularis) that we caught in Ecuador that weighed 2.17 grams—about as much as 2 M&Ms! This species is only one of a handful that’s larger than the Bee Hummingbird, the smallest bird in the world. (Photo: Alyssa J. Sargent)
| Tales from the field |
The answers to these questions are still largely murky. In our everyday lives, we’ve become accustomed to navigating the world with our phones, which rely on GPS to pinpoint our locations; in this golden age of wildlife-applied electronics, ecologists can apply the same technology to study how birds move. But satellite-based tracking devices are still too large for nearly every kind of hummingbird. Instead, we turn to radiotelemetry, equipping these tiny birds with much-smaller transmitters— backpack-style—which emit radio signals we can locate and track. To uncover the unique stories of different individuals and how they face daily challenges, our jellybean-sized tags let us track where and when hummingbirds fly in competitive landscapes. I’m currently conducting my doctoral fieldwork at Centro de Investigación Colibrí Gorriazul, where the hummingbirds come thick and fast, and the rotation of 20-odd feeders is always stocked. In fact, the station can use 50 kilograms of sugar—or more—for their “nectar” in a single month! Nestled in an agricultural-forested matrix on the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian
Andes, Gorriazul isn’t only a year-round home to many hummingbirds, but also a waystation for many tiny travelers migrating up and down the mountain. Here, there’s abundant food: a perfect haven for a hungry hummingbird. This past winter, we tracked male Black-throated Mangos, which have brilliant fuchsia tails and a penchant for aggressive behavior. While my research is still highly active, we’ve been both delighted and surprised by how much ground these hummingbirds cover over the course of several weeks. While they did invest most of their time around the station’s hub of feeders, they also flew across nearly our entire receiver grid, which ranges 600 by 600 meters—a space that’s equivalent to roughly 50 professional football pitches! For birds that are around 12 centimetres long, that’s quite the commute. Why travel so far if you have unlimited resources? Hummingbirds are habituated to flowers; if they aren’t quick enough in the wild, a competitor is more than likely to beat them to the punch—that is, the nectar. We know that the feeders are up year-round, but Issue 3 November 2023 | 29
Hummingbirds can carry parasites, like feather lice or flower mites; here, I’m inspecting the wing of a Brown Violetear (Colibri delphinae) while working at Centro de Investigación Colibrí Gorriazul in Colombia. (Photo: Ana Melisa Fernandes)
for a hummingbird, that connection is perhaps less clear. It’s in his best interest to find supplements and backups—especially ones with fewer defenders! Though there’s still much work to be done, we’re beginning to quantify these explorative movements like never before. With their far-ranging expeditions, spanning landscapes and territories as they seek out diverse sources of nectar, hummingbirds are small but mighty— and in their aerial kingdom, there are many mysteries left to unravel. ■ Alyssa Sargent Alyssa is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington, where she studies the movement ecology of tropical hummingbirds. Her field expeditions take place in Colombia and Ecueador.
| Extreme expeditioning | Leading on Ice. Winter training, December 2022 in the Canadian Rockies (photo credit: Leonardo Iezzi)
Visually Impaired Adventurer Shines Light on the Power of Perspective and Possibility amidst the World’s Highest Peaks Climbing the world’s 14 peaks which stand above 8,000 m, visually impaired traumatic injury survivor Jill Wheatley is quietly setting records in our world’s highest mountains. The past year saw me stand atop six of the giants. Though each presented their own challenges, nothing compared to the climb that
came in the wake of an accident while working as a Health, Sport Science and Physical Education teacher in Bavaria. A sport mishap changed my life in a split second. What followed was 70% loss of vision, 26 months of intensive care and treatment between seven hospitals and rehabilitation centers across two continents and three countries to treat the physical, cognitive and emotional repercussions of traumatic brain injury (TBI).
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In 2017, after being discharged from specialized care in Denver, Colorado, I chose to travel throughout a variety of massifs for one year in an attempt to avoid stares and stigma of society with hope Mother Nature would foster a spark of inspiration and movement toward accepting the ways in which my life had changed. That trail was set with intent to avoid snow as I could not imagine navigating in such terrain with limited vision and lack of depth perception. Beginning in
| Extreme expeditioning |
Europe, the trail led to India then through Nepal where I fell in love with the Himalayas. Moving from a wheelchair, to walking, to hiking then running among the world’s highest peaks, connections in the trail running community quickly connected to the Nepali climbing scene. Intrigued by altitude after running the Annapurna Circuit, Manaslu Mountain Trail Race and throughout the shadows of Everest, I climbed several 6,000 m peaks, including the technically renowned Ama Dablam. I skied solo on Mera Peak (6,476 m) confirming I was fit and inspired to embark higher.
With six of the world’s 14 peaks that stand above 8,000 m summited, the only Canadian female to do so, I am on track to complete the remaining eight in 2023. With continued strength, I climb on finding serendipity in my story and thriving knowing I can help others find hope in darkness; shining light on the power of perspective and possibility. For more of my story, details of Vision 8 000 and how you can support my project, please visit my website and share the light. ■
It felt fitting to entertain my intrigue with altitude on Manaslu. The combination of ease and strength at 8,163 m sparked fire within. No longer a teacher in the literal sense, climbing all 14 peaks could allow others to see how I have chosen to respond to adversity. I did not choose my TBI or vision loss but I choose how I respond and when challenge prevails, I choose to challenge the mountains of my mind. In a season that saw some of the most pristine weather conditions on record in the Himalayas and the Karakoram, I summited the seventh highest, Dhaulagiri 8,167 m on April 9th, 2022, Kanchenjunga 8,586 m, the world’s third highest peak on May 7 and Makalu, 8,463 m, the fifth highest on May 28 before leaving Nepal to climb in Pakistan. My introduction to the Karakoram began with a balancing act of acclimatization climbs between Broad Peak and K2 before summiting both within a week in late July. Nanaga Parbat (8,125 m) was penciled to be my final climb of the season yet Mother Nature had other plans. With the heaviest rainfall in the past 30 years hitting Pakistan my team was set to summit, the summer monsoon fall-out included avalanches that had us plan a new route before eventually having the expedition called off early in September.
Issue 3 November 2023 | 31
Jill Wheatley Life changed in split second for adventurer Jill Wheatley; traumatic brain injury, vision loss & an avalanche of complications, Jill is now climbing all of the world’s peaks above 8000m with only 30 % eyesight.
Final steps towards Dhaulagiri (8 167m), my 2nd climb of Vision 8000
| Youth expeditioning | Amy and Ella
Plastic is not so fantastic! Junior Editor Rowan interviews the founders of Kids Against Plastic For this issue, it was a great pleasure to be able to talk to Amy Meek (20) and Ella Meek (18) who run a charity called Kids Against Plastic (KAP) This inspiring and motivational duo have been doing this since 2016. KAP is a charity to help people to reduce plastic usage and help schools and all the children in the country feel empowered so that they can take action against plastic pollution and other environmental issues too.
How do you get people involved in citizen science? They explained that although they carried out lots of litter picking to start with, which was great for their local area, they found it frustrating because the litter gets replaced and is still produced. So it makes you wonder if you are actually making a difference. They worked together with a company called EsriUK to create a litter logging app to put the data into something useful, which highlights particular items of litter, in particular cities and countries to identify some key litter hotspots. Their litter logging app now Issue 3 November 2023 | 32
has over 160,000 pieces of litter loggedon it. It’s quite scary but beneficial to see that picture of litter around the world.
How did you get involved with campaigning? They told me that they were being home-schooled and taught about the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Through researching some of those goals they found a common thread of plastic pollution and were intrigued. Their own research shocked them and they decided to start with litter picking and then wanted to start the charity to help people reduce the amount of plastic they use in their lives.
| Youth expeditioning |
Was there any other technology you used and if so, how did you develop it? They explained that KAP is very virtual because if it is online that makes it accessible to a lot of people worldwide so you can reach anyone anywhere and get them involved. With Plastic Clever Schools all of the resources are free and available online so they don’t need to be printed. This reduces paper waste in the classroom. Also, they have got a map on their website with all schools in the UK on it so it’s easy for them to get involved. As well as that, groups of awesome young people join virtual calls every Saturday morning from countries such as the USA, Australia and Spain – more than 11 different countries. Amy and Ella said that they thought that it is super cool to see kids that would never have met come together to share their common interests and passions.
What are the impacts of plastic on animals? They informed me that all types of animals are affected by plastic waste - sea mammals become tangled up, suffocated and strangled - which is horrible to see but it also affects animals at much more minute levels. For example, microplastics can enter animal’s blood and plastic has entered the food chain when it should not have done. This has ended up affecting almost all animals on the planet including humans (it can penetrate the lungs, blood, brain and heart) so it can affect any animal on the planet – it’s everywhere. Amy and Ella think it is crazy to see the scale and differences between the victims of plastic – from whales with plastic in their stomach (fishing nets and plastic bags) down to plankton called Copepods, that are microscopic, that have tiny pieces of plastic in them.
Why is collecting plastic is so important to you?
They explained that litter picking is simple and easy for anyone to do and that it was one of the first things they did which made a quick difference. They think that it is a great first step for people as it doesn’t need to be a massive change in anyone’s lives, it can just take 5-10 minutes a day and that can swiftly make a difference. Most people think that litter picking is boring or unhygienic but if you use the right equipment (such as gloves and litter pickers) it then can become both fun and safe. When dealing with the colossal issues of plastic pollution and climate change it can be hard to see the difference you are making, but in litter picking Amy and Ella said you will be able to see the difference you are making almost immediately. I told Amy and Ella that I do litter picking in my local park and I am looking forward to linking this with KAP in the future.
“It is crazy to see
the scale and differences between the victims of plastic”
Where did you find the most plastic? They explained that they live in Nottingham so they have limited litter picking areas near them (no beaches) but that you can always find litter wherever you are even if the area looks clean at first glance. They find a lot of litter by the roadside, they see it everywhere now and it opens your eyes to how much there really is in the world.
Is plastic different in different parts of the world? They said that there is quite a lot of variety in plastic already (different types are classified using different numbers) and they see similar types Issue 3 November 2023 | 33
all around the world. They see a lot of PET plastic (water bottles) and also thin plastic – bags and sachets. What varies is how the plastic is dealt with – in some countries all of the plastic goes to landfill, but some counties have recycling systems like the U.K.
How does research provide information for your campaigns? They said they have done research on microfibers from clothing – plastic bottles are often made into fleeces or carpets, but when they go in the wash, large amounts of tiny plastic fibres go out into the water. Amy and Ella were interested in the question as to whether microfibers are filtered out of treated water or whether they are still going out into the environment. So they went to their local water treatment plant with special microfiber filters and sampled the water. Disturbingly, they found microfibres in the water being released, which shows they are getting into marine environments because they are too tiny to filter out with normal methods.
What do you think people on expeditions could do to help you get more information? They said it is always interesting to see research of where microplastics have been found – at the summit of Everest and in deep ocean trenches. To help bring about global change it is extremely important to find more information and data about where plastic has been found by carrying out sampling for plastics in different locations around the world. Also, in more populated areas they said it would be great to see what types of plastics are being found – for example what brands are found most often– because the only way we can get big businesses and corporations to act is to show that their waste is getting all around the world and they need to act to stop this and clean it up.
| Youth expeditioning |
Have you ever found an animal trapped or injured by plastic that you had to help? Although they haven’t personally, some of the other KAP club members have encountered this problem. They have however seen plants growing in and around plastic trays because they have been there such a long time. They have also seen nests from swans or coots along canals where you can see bits of plastic interwoven with the natural things that should be in the nests. Animals mistake plastic for food and nests all over the world and can get caught out by this new material.
The most important messages Amy and Ella have for people are: 1. Never underestimate the effect your actions can have. Even if people feel using a reusable item instead of a plastic one won’t make much difference, if everybody did that it would make a huge difference and have a massive impact. 2. It is also worth doing something rather than nothing – never underestimate the effect that you as a person can have. 3. Don’t feel that taking action has to be a big add on to your life. You need to be able to fit it in to your normal life. Look for what works best for you.
How do businesses react when you tell them they are making a problem with plastic? They replied that it’s very varied – some businesses are having to admit they are having an effect on the environment as the evidence is so clear – they don’t get denial but apathy or lack of action is a big issue. Businesses are starting to see that it’s important to make changes – if not for the planet then for their business as people are becoming more aware and thinking more carefully when making their buying choices to be more eco-friendly. Amy and Ella run a Plastic Clever initiative rather thanplastic free one as it’s a case of using plastics more cleverly and not feeling it has to be all or nothing – take small steps and then grow your action. I would like to thank Amy and Ella for taking the time to tell me about what they do and their experiences. I think they are both very extraordinary people and I look forwards to taking part in more KAP litter picks soon. ■ Interviewer Rowan Junior Explorer Rowan, aged 11 from Gloucestershire, is a future Marine Biologist who wants to explore the seas of the World to find undiscovered marine species, classify and protect them.
Any school can register for the Plastic Clever initiative: www.plasticcleverschools.co.uk
Issue 3 November 2023 | 34
| Expedition revealed |
A photographic examination of fieldwork in the Mangrove Swamps, Australia: Discussing fieldwork in the mangroves through 10 photographs.
Issue 3 November 2023 | 35
| Expedition revealed |
Exploring the land between forest and sea: there’s never a dull moment.
Immersed in their tidal world to detect species adapted to a constantly changing environment.
Their complexity is one to admire
Issue 3 November 2023 | 36
| Expedition revealed |
At night, mangroves show their true magic
Fascinated by the diversity of animals that thrive in extreme conditions of salt and submersion
When you look close enough mangroves reveal their hidden secrets
Mud isn’t optional
Issue 3 November 2023 | 37
| Expedition revealed |
Mangroves are best explored with someone special
The mangrove seeds, propagules, are adapted to go with the flow
Stefanie Rogg Stefanie is a Conservation biologist specialising in tropical wetlands, particularly the muddy and salty ones. Her passion is exploring these habitats at night to uncover their hidden biodiversity.
Working the Changing Tides Makes Extra Excitement
Issue 3 November 2023 | 38
| Fundworthy Expeditions |
Expedition leaders seeking funding
Abdul Rahim Idris, Leon McCarron, Madeleine Foote, Anna Knochel, Leticia Benavalli.
Abdul Rahim Idris, Begonia in Kalimantan: The Expedition to Discover Undescribed Species in the Meratus Ecosytem Range Meratus - ancient ophiolite mountains that divided South Kalimantan into two. The geographical isolation of these mountains has created the perfect environment for many species including Begonia. In 2015, only five accepted species were recorded in Kalimantan, in comparison to 250 in total of Begonia species in Borneo. We are looking for support to make our exploration successful in resolving the gap of Begonia in Kalimantan. https://meratusseries.wixsite.com/my-
rahimidris284@gmail.com
Leon McCarron, The Zagros Mountain Trail Expedition Over the last 7 years I have worked with a local team to map and develop a long-distance walking trail in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, called the Zagros Mountain Trail. This year I will lead a small team on a thru-hike of its entire length, as well as exploring a new section that could form an extension, to collect and preserve the history, heritage, and knowledge of the path. www.zagrosmountaintrail.org | www.leonmccarron.com
@leonmccarron
Issue 3 November 2023 | 39
leon@leonmccarron.com
| Fundworthy Expeditions |
Madeleine Foote, Expedition Moxico: Researching resistance in remote places Moxico is a vast inland region in eastern Angola. In collaboration with local communities, Oxford researcher Madeleine Jane and Angolan journalist Mauro Sérgio will lead the first research expedition to document this remote place’s human geography, cultural heritage, and history. Follow along (and fund) this ground-breaking expedition!” www.expeditionmoxico.com
eartotheground.substack.com
madelienejanefoote@gmail.com
Anna Knochel, Diving for Devils Oceanic manta rays are the largest species of ray alive on earth but are vastly understudied compared to animals of similar size. On this interdisciplinary research expedition to the Galapagos, we plan to collect data on a mysterious population of oceanic manta rays, gaining insight into their population structure, movement behaviours, habitat use, vulnerability to anthropogenic impacts, and population demographics. @mantannaray | @mantasecuador
www.mantasecuador.org/about-us
anna.knochel@mantatrust.org
Leticia Benavalli, Cryptic Jaguars: saving the unseen Jaguars are Endangered in Brazil, and they have been eliminated from all of the southern Cerrado – a vast tropical savanna that is now highly fragmented. However, they recently recolonized several small, isolated reserves in this region. I plan to study these newly discovered jaguars by expanding threatened native habitats, supporting ecotourism, implementing livestock protection measures, and documenting this cryptic population. lebenavalli@gmail.com
@adhocleticia
@Letícia Benavalli
Issue 3 November 2023 | 40
@leticia.benavalli
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