Emmanuelle Périé-Bardout
Author: Franck Gazzola
2023

Emmanuelle Périé-Bardout

Underwater Explorer

Under the pole

meet emannuelle

Fascinated by oceans since childhood, Emmanuelle Périer-Bardout trained to become a skipper and head a nautical base at the French National School of Sailing and Les Glénans. In 2004, she joined a year-long expedition with French explorer Jean-Louis Étienne as a sailor and nautical activities manager, then was first mate on a polar sailing boat in Norway. After a mission at the geographical North Pole, she founded Under The Pole with her husband, Ghislain Bardout (see page 50), in 2008. As a rebreather diver on the expeditions and captain of the WHY, Under The Pole’s sailboat, she co-leads programs in the field and from their home base in Brittany, with a keen eye for education and conservation.

Under the pole
Nominated by: Martin Kraus MR'15
Class of 2023 Location France
Author: Benoit Poyelle

For the past 15 years, through our Under The Pole program, we have undertaken numerous pioneering expeditions to explore submarine habitats. Some of these forays stand out for the rarity of the images brought back, others for the value of the scientific work and technological innovation in an environment where humankind can only stay on borrowed time: the ocean. To succeed in exploring polar, temperate, and tropical environments—seldom visited because of their difficult access—requires unconventional resources.

Author: Franck Gazzola

“We must consider coastal ecosystems in their continuity, from the surface to the depths, to ensure the conservation and sustainable management of marine biodiversity.”

- Emmanuelle Périé-Bardout
Author: Julien Leblond

Only five to 10 percent of the ocean is known, mostly in shallow waters. Due to our unique expertise, we have embarked on an ambitious global program, Deeplife, to deepen scientific knowledge of the ocean’s mesophotic zone—ocean depths between 30 and 200 meters. This intermediate zone represents a large part of the coasts and is largely unknown though crucial for their ecology, playing a fundamental role in the ocean’s balance. Our work in this realm has changed our vision of the reef and demonstrated the absolute necessity of integrating this zone into global conservation programming. It revealed hot spots of sheltered biodiversity here: a greater coral diversity at 40 to 60 meters than in shallow waters, a potential refuge against global warming because of low coral bleaching beyond 40 meters depth, and the discovery of corals adapted to life down to 172 meters—a world record! We must consider coastal ecosystems in their continuity, from the surface to the depths, to ensure the conservation and sustainable management of marine biodiversity.

Author: Franck Gazzola

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CLASS OF 2023

Get the 2023 EC50 print publication