71 Heritage Expeditions guests can help the study of ancient penguin colonies in Antarctica and Macquarie Island in the Pacific Ocean through bone and egg shell collections Research onboard our ship, Heritage Adventurer, has led to new and significant findings that would have otherwise been impossible to retrieve. The passengers were thrilled by the experience and Emslie and Sutherland plan to make future trips with us to continue sampling the Ross Sea during citizen science projects. These scientific efforts are further enriched by a world-first initiative led by indigenous knowledge holders. Heritage Expeditions’ work alongside Ngāi Tahu, the principal Māori tribe of New Zealand’s South Island, is redefining how research is conducted in Antarctica. The world’s first indigenous-led Antarctic research programme with Heritage Expeditions and South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu on the Murihiku ki te Tonga programme has resulted in a detailed survey of a key archaeological site on Enderby Island, more penguin mapping at Cape Adare, extensive research on orcas, and the submission of Murihiku ki te Tonga’s first research paper to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. “I am personally a great fan of Heritage Expeditions and the commitment shown by the Russ family,” said Tā Tipene O’Regan, head of the Awarua Rūnaka of Ngāi Tahu. “This is a case of a growing partnership that has the opportunity to deliver amazing results for all New Zealanders across a number of areas. They’ve got a particular set of values which, I and many of my Kai Tahu colleagues, admire enormously. They are values which protect the impact of visitors and take great care to ensure the protection and heritage of these rare and wondrous places, that are such an integral component in our own Kai Tahu heritage. “We owe them a great debt of appreciation and gratitude for the efforts that they have made to preserve what they bring people to see. And the way they do it actually enhances the value of that heritage in a very real way. We’ve been able to contribute some small measure to their vision of what they do, they have been able to enormously enhance our vision and our dream, our moemoeā of our delivery and protection of our own heritage in this very special rohe willed to us by our tīpuna.”
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