Royal College of Art

The first full day at the seminar started off with an opening address by Paul Rose, the chairman of 2018 Explore.
The main aspect of his welcome was how expeditions, at the root, are a chance to reconnect with nature during a time of growing disconnection, and how they can correct the imbalance that currently exists between economy and environment.

Over the course of the morning and early afternoon several key note speakers presented their projects and findings to the audience.

1. The Karakoram Anomaly Project by Federica Chiappe and Sergiu Jiduc looked at the development of the glaciers providing water to 1.3 billion people in India and Pakistan. This specific glacier in the Shimshal valley is in fact surging (growing and moving), and doing so in contrast to the global trend of retreating glaciers. The implications this surging glacier could have on a local level was a big focus of this fieldwork, addressing the community reaction and adaption and putting traditional and modern early warning systems in place to assess the potential flood risks.
2. The Rangers without Borders project presented by Josh Powell and Peter Coals aimed at better understanding the work of and welfare conditions for wildlife rangers in understudied environments such as Eurasia. With three main focus points (ranger livelihoods, poaching threats and transboundary cooperation), a survey was put in place to assess the challenges faced by rangers in 6 national parks within the Eurasian area. Some of the findings concluded hurdles such as arduous working conditions, poor salary, lack of equipment and corruption. It also became clear that rangers had mixed relationships and integration statuses within their separate communities, due to a difference in approach regarding animal and plant poaching. With this in mind the concept of applying social science techniques to instigate successful wildlife rangers was realised; conservation work must be coppled with the people, due to the local communities‘ large influence on rangers and their behaviour (e.g. close community bonds with low likelihood of outing illegal activities to outsiders).
3. ‘Exploring what Matters‘ by Scotty Johnson took a more in depth look at the idea of finding a purpose for travel. Rather than going on expedition for ego-centered reasons, especially nowadays, it is vital to consider the questions: what does the world need? besides what matters to you? It is important to gain perspective on what is ok and what is not ok to do, whilst upkeeping a balance between personal gain, negative impact and meaningful outcomes of a venture. The idea of labelling should not be used as the reason for an expedition. Rather than focusing on a headline, it is far more essential to have appropriate measuring and follow up of a project in place. The core appeal of the talk was to think about questions to ask in the future and to look for reasons for doing things.
4. As has become obvious in our Planning Intenational Expeditions module this year, detailed planning is essential. The talk by Stephen Jones touched on the aspects to address when planning an expedition. From the main aim and supporting objectives, over finance, timetables, team selection, safety planning, research and pre-exped training to gaining a profound level of detail on risks, responses and country-specific bureaucratic pitfalls; everything must be taken into account.
5. Ceri Lewis, marine biologist at Exeter University, presented her findings on Ocean plastics, more specifically microplastics, and their impact on the biodiversity of marine invertebrates around the Galapagos Islands. With 8 million tons of plastic landing in the oceans each year, and zooplankton, at the beginning of the food chain, injesting these plastics, data was collected to determine hotspots of pollution and impact on biodiversity. Ultimately a long-term management plan to reduce this waste and impact was initiated.
6. Sailors to Scientists presented by Andrew Pindar and Emily Nagel looked at the sustainability program that had been put in place at this year’s Volvo Ocean Race. The sailing teams and boats not only competed in the race lasting over 8 months but on their way, were able to analyse the microplastic density in some of the remotest areas of the oceans hardly ever reached by any scientists. The findings concluded the highest density around coast lines, though the most shocking result was that out of 75 tested remote areas only 3 turned out microplastic free. This microplastic analysis data is open source and publicly available.
7. When setting off on an ‘expensive holiday’ as Jake Meyer puts it, there are some general things to consider to ensure the right mindset and mentality in mountains. First, there must be an understanding with the people you are travelling with regarding skills and preparation. Second, the three main qualities that make an expedition successful are generosity, reciprocity and trust; and third, comfort is an illusion.
8. Emma Barrett and Nathan Smith looked at expeditions from a more psychological perspective and explained different stressors one might face on an expedition (fear, anxiety, pain, bad sleep, monotony, hypoxia, other people). Besides stressors on the trip itself, they put emphasis on how one must re-adapt from simplicity to complexity, the unreality of every day life, missing the expedition context and missing a purpose. This pattern of post expedition depression is a concept to be taken into closer proximity when looking at the aftercare of expeditions.

In between these talks were three breaks, including lunch, offering the chance to mill over everything that had been said and connect with other people at the seminar.
During lunch I got chatting to Liv Grant, a BBC documentary filmmaker and biology graduate from Oxford. She had just returned from an expedition to the Marquesas Islands, studying the extremely rare Ultramarine Lorikeet parrot. It was remarkable to hear about all she had achieved at only 22.

The afternoon workshop addressed logistics for different types of climates, from polar to desert, each consisting of a panel of several experts in their field. I chose tropical rainforests, where part of the discussion covered the immense physical effect of a tropical forest and how aware of your own and others’ physical and emotional state you must be during expedition.
The workshop also covered ways of including scientific research in expeditions.
Regarding preparation it is possible to prepare for challenges you may come across in a jungle setting, and it is vital to recreate these components for practice and acclimatisation. The more practice you have dealing with the pressures of decision-making on expedition, the stronger the contingency plans in place will be. The general consensus of the workshop was to learn as many skills as possible (e.g. first-aid, bushcraft, knots).

The final part of the day was conducted in a questions and answers panel in the lecture theatre. Some of the questions included funding (meaningful collaborations, awareness of funders, duty of care), compromises (not approaching funders inappropriate to ethics of expedition, sponsorship as an investment not charity, showing credibility, interdisciplinary projects) and general tips (fresh ways of communicating expeditions, integrity, fieldwork grants).
As many funding opportunities there are, it came across that it may be required to go ahead, self-fund and do it rather than waiting for a plod of money to start experiencing.

All in all the first full day turned out to be a very full on day indeed, with a huge amount of food for thought, not only in regards to our own expedition next summer but also how to go about making travel and expeditions mean something other than pushing personal boundaries.

And although it was quite intimidating at the start to walk up to some incredible experts in their field of work and ask questions that may not seem that incredible, all had shown interest and consideration and had given constructive feedback. I got back at around half 9 in the evening with my conversation and thinking skills shriveled up like a raisin, yet couldn’t stop grinning about it all.Read more