Table of contents for Summer 2025 in The Explorers Journal

“The discovery of new vertebrates is much more rare than invertebrates, and new mammals are the rarest of all. For that reason, our team, and myself, are particularly excited about the four new mammal species, including an extremely rare amphibious mouse of the genus Daptomys,” says Trond Larsen, the senior director for biodiversity and ecosystem science at Conservation International, who led a 38-day scientific expedition into the Alto Mayo of Peru in 2022, and has only recently released the results of their findings. “Considering that this remote, yet relatively populous, region of northern Peru had experienced significant deforestation, our team team didn’t expect to find much,” he says. To their surprise, they identified 27 species new to science—the four aformentioned mammels; three amphibians, including a climbing salamander; eight fish; and…

FLAG Nº 12 SINCE ITS FIRST FORAY INTO THE FIELD IN 1928, FLAG Nº 12 HAS TRAVELED WITH SOME OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB’S MOST NOTABLE SCIENTISTS, INCLUDING PALEOANTHROPOLOGIST DONALD C. JOHANSON, PHD; PALEONTOLOGIST MARK NORELL, PHD; AND UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGIST SHELLEY WACHSMANN, PHD. THE FLAG WILL BE CARRIED ON THE REMAINING EXPEDITIONS IN THIS 10-PART SERIES, UNDERTAKEN BY CONSTANCE SCHARFF, PHD, OF THE HUMAN RESILIENCE PROJECT, BASED AT THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN SCIENCE. ROLEX WATCH Nº 1 SINCE ITS FIRST EXPEDITION TO UZBEKISTAN IN JULY 2019, ROLEX WATCH Nº 1, AN EXPLORER, HAS TRAVELED TO THE CENTRAL ARCTIC OCEAN, THE REPUBLIC OF TUVA, INDIA, AND BHUTAN. A MEMBER OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB SINCE 2024, CONSTANCE SCHARFF, PHD, IS THE FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF THE HUMAN RESILIENCE PROJECT BASED AT THE…

A CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGIST BY TRAINING AND A MEMBER OF THE EC50 CLASS OF 2021, PAIGE WEST, PHD, IS THE CLAIRE TOW PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT BARNARD COLLEGE AND COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY AND A GUGGENHEIM FELLOW. SINCE THE LATE 1990S, HER RESEARCH AND TEACHING HAVE FOCUSED ON THE INTERREL ATIONSHIP OF INDIGENOUS ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE, ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION, AND SOCIOPOLITICAL TRANSFORMATION IN OCEANIA, PARTICULARLY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA, WHERE SHE HAS CONDUCTED FIELD-BASED RESEARCH SINCE 1997. CHIEF JOHN AINI, A MEMBER OF THE EC50 CLASS OF 2022, IS A MAIMAI IN THE MALANGAN CULTURE, AN AINPIDIK IN THE TUMBUAN SOCIETY, AND A MERENGEN FROM HIS OWN TUNGAK CULTURE. When you arrive on the shores of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, the first thing you notice is the quiet. It’s not an empty…

A MEMBER OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB SINCE 2020 AND FOUNDER OF THE EXPLORATION MUSEUM IN HÚSAVÍK, ICELAND, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER ÖRLYGUR ÖRLYGSSON HAS LED EXPEDITIONS INTO ICELAND’S NEW LAVA FIELDS; HAS DOCUMENTED THE HISTORY OF EXPLORATION DURING THE VIKING AGE AND THE APOLLO ASTRONAUT TRAINING PROGR AM IN ICEL AND; AND HAS JOURNEYED TO THE NORTH POLE, RETR ACING AN EXTRAORDINARY BUT LITTLE-KNOWN CHAPTER IN THE LIVES OF TWO OF THE GREATEST EXPLORERS OF THE 20TH CENTURY. It began as so many great adventures do: with a small clue left without an explanation. In the summer of 2015, a couple stepped through the door of my Exploration Museum in Húsavík. They paid for two tickets, wandered the exhibits, and, without a word, left a red folder on the counter on their…

FROZEN HORIZONS MEASURING ANTHROPOGENIC POLLUTION AND ANTARCTIC GLACIAL MELT In November, Darren Slevin, a data scientist for NatWest Group in Edinburgh, and Nathan Lumb of the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre in Manchester, England, plan to embark on the Frozen Horizons expedition, an unsupported round-trip trek to the South Pole. The two will fly in from Union Glacier in the Ellsworth Mountains to begin their journey—the start and end points being Hercules Inlet on the inland side of the Ronne Ice Shelf where it connects to the Antarctic landmass. Along the 2,200-kilometer trek, which is expected to take three months, the expedition will collect snow samples along the route to study light-absorbing particles (LAPs) such as black carbon, which are known to be accelerating glacial melt. The science lead for the…

A FELLOW OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB SINCE 2011, JUSTIN FORNAL USES AN INNOVATIVE BLEND OF STORYTELLING AND ACTIVISM TO SHOWCASE VANISHING TRADITIONS IN CRISIS ZONES. HE HAS FOCUSED HIS RESEARCH ON ANCIENT TEXTILE PRODUCTION, TRADITIONAL FOODWAYS, AND THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF RITUAL. HE HAS ORGANIZED AND LED RESEARCH EXPEDITIONS THROUGH DOZENS OF COUNTRIES, INCLUDING IRAQ, SOMALIA, HAITI, YEMEN, ETHIOPIA, LIBERIA, AND GREENLAND. FORNAL IS CURRENTLY PENNING A BOOK CHRONICLING MORE THAN 25 YEARS OF FIELD RESEARCH. Kwame, a 10-year-old boy living in the Kibaale district of Uganda, was walking home from school along an empty stretch of backroad when a motorbike pulled up alongside him, the man on the bike offering him a ride home. When Kwame replied that he was happy to just keep walking, the man reached into…

In early June, the formidable research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer was to have cleared the pier at Punta Arenas just before daybreak, her laboratories alive with compressors and core freezers. Instead, the crew faced a last-minute directive explaining that the National Science Foundation will be terminating the ship’s lease next year, part of a consolidation plan driven by the latest federal budget request coming out of Washington, DC. The stillness in the Strait of Magellan fore-shadows an abrupt anti-science/anti-research contraction now rapidly moving through observatories, seed banks, and cultural centers on every continent. Since January, the numbers have hardened. The National Science Foundation has voided 1,040 active or pending awards, erasing $739 million of inquiry. The fiscal plan for NASA would cut the agency’s science account by nearly half, jeopardizing…

CONTACT: GIVING@EXPLORERS.ORG ENSURE A FUTURE FOR THE ARCHITECTURAL GEM THAT IS OUR NEW YORK CITY HEADQUARTERS BY PURCHASING A PAVER ON THE LEFRAK TERRACE—ENGRAVED WITH YOUR NAME OR DEDICATION—WITH A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION OF $5,000 OR MORE TO OUR LOWELL THOMAS BUILDING FUND. THE EXPLORERS CLUB WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING WHO HAVE PURCHASED A PAVER: Mark R. Allio, Joanna Allman, James H. Alexander, John G. Alexander, Darlene T. Anderson, Jeanne D. Andlinger, Barbara Annan, Robert J. Aresty, Robert Ashton, Atlanta Chapter, Robert J. Atwater, Robin Wheeler Azqueta, Norman L. Baker, George Basch, Gayle Batchelor, Andreas Bender, Josh Bernstein, John Bierley, Bruce Blanchard, John R. Bockstoce, Brian M. Boom, John R. Boreske Jr., Jill Botway, Gary W. Bowersox, Lawson W. Brigham, Rosalie Brinton, Diane Britz-Lotti, Doug and Kathryn Burgum, Susan…