August 11, 2026

We’re thrilled to share updates from the EC50 Class of 2026!

As summer expeditions unfold around the world, the EC50 Class of 2026 has been venturing into some of the planet’s most remarkable places. From conducting biodiversity surveys on land and beneath the sea, to working alongside local communities and inspiring the next generation of explorers and conservationists, the EC50 honorees are expanding our understanding of the natural world and building projects to protect it.

Read on to see where their work has taken them over the past few months.

 

Gabriela Ochoa and ilili survey Biodiversity of Miskito Cays

Gabriela Ochoa and the ilili team recently surveyed some of the most remote cays in Honduras. The Miskito cays are located approximately 120km offshore from the mainland and are composed of over 54 cays on the border of the exclusive zone with Nicaragua. These cays are home to incredible biodiversity above and below the water. The ilili team were there to assess the abundance of sharks and the health of the reef, but they also encountered several nesting populations of seabirds including magnificent frigates, brown boobies and masked boobies. Underwater they were surprised to find coral species which are functionally extinct in the Caribbean due to stony coral tissue loss disease like pillar corals and maze corals, and they look forward to reviewing their baited cameras to see sharks in the area.

Gaby Ochoa tagging shark. Credit: Fritz Pinnow

 

Vera Knook & River Collective run Students for Rivers Camp in Colombia

In September, Vera Knook and the River Collective will host a two-week ‘Students for Rivers’ Camp on the Samaná River in Colombia. Fourteen university students will join experts from various fields in natural and social sciences, advocacy and storytelling. They all share one common drive: a passion for rivers and the goal to advance long-term legal protection for the Samaná River. They will descend the Samaná River from its headwaters to its confluence with the Magdalena River, first by foot and then by raft, collecting data along the way to build a collective story of what makes this river worth protecting. Led by a team of students from the River Collective, the camp brings international and local voices together and concludes in a community festival in San Carlos, where the future of the River is envisioned.

Following their 2025 expedition on the Marañón River in Peru, this is the second edition of ‘Students for Rivers’ camp in Latin America and will continue to build a community of young river lovers who turn knowledge into action for threatened rivers.

Students for Rivers Camp. Credit: Jules Dominé

 

Ali Skanda & The Flipflopi Project start youth cooperative

In their workshop on Lamu Island, Ali Skanda and the Flipflopi team are building something special, a Lamu style dhow made from colorful recycled plastic. The 4-meter long traditional dhow will travel to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, as part of the museum’s upcoming exhibition focusing on the Indian Ocean.

While the team finished the recycled plastic dhow, FlipFlopi is also forming a youth cooperative from the local community. The Bahari Collective is made up of 8 members, with an average age of 25, who are participating in a one-year program to build a boat with an electric engine. This community-owned cooperative will have shared assets, shared governance, and believes Lamu’s maritime transport sector, which moves goods across 35+ islands, should be owned by the people who run it.

Credit: The Flipflopi Project

 

Len Necefer documents San Juan River expedition

This spring, Len Necefer joined the Returning Rapids Project for an expedition down the lowest reach of the San Juan River, documenting how sediment long held behind Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona is re-migrating downstream as Lake Powell recedes; rapids and a river channel re-emerging from what was, until recently, reservoir bottom. The expedition was a firsthand look at the Colorado River system in transition, as the Colorado River Compact is renegotiated.

Len has also been in the field with the Yurok Tribe at Redwood National and State Parks, and has been producing a documentary on the return of the California condor to its ancestral range—a century-long reintroduction effort led by the Tribe.

The Returning Rapids team portaging the infamous waterfall on the San Juan River, caused by sedimentation by Lake Powell. Credit: Len Necefer

 

Eshadi Mendis’s Schoolyard-Based Environmental Education Framework

Eshadi Mendis’s community-led project on the endangered Rhino-horned Lizard (Ceratophora stoddartii) and montane biodiversity in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka combines ecological field research with school-based conservation education. Alongside ongoing ecology surveys, Eshadi and her team have conducted several workshops where children communicate conservation ideas through drawing, drama, photography, and hands-on observation. Students are also conducting regular lizard patrols within their school grounds and recording their observations.

As part of her MSc degree, Eshadi is developing a game-based learning tool designed to help children connect with nature while providing teachers with a practical, user-friendly resource for school-based environmental education.

Eshadi is also launching a new project, Eco-Mosaic, in collaboration with Dr Poppy Lakeman Fraser from England and Dr Natalie Sinclair from Scotland. This global collaboration will combine art, conservation, storytelling, and community knowledge across Sri Lanka, Scotland, and England. In Sri Lanka, she will work with children from the Indigenous Vedda community, learning from relationships between culture, landscapes, and biodiversity.

Students collect data on the ecology of the Rhino-Horned Lizard. Credit: Eshadi Mendis

 

Emma Camp analyzes coral health in Groote Archipelago

In Australia, Emma Camp and her team have undertaken expeditions to the remote Groote Archipelago, co-led with the Anindilyakwa Traditional Owners. Their work has provided the first comprehensive assessment of coral reef condition in the region, revealing that these remote reefs are increasingly threatened by climate-driven disturbances, with coral cover ranging from 5.2 – 47.1% and site-specific impacts following recent bleaching and Cyclone Megan in 2024. By establishing this critical ecological baseline, their study supports future conservation, long-term monitoring, and collaborative reef management with the Anindilyakwa Traditional Owners.

Emma swims over coral reefs of the Northern Territory of Australia. Credit: Hadley England

 

Hugues de Kerdrel & Mission William study whale shark migration

Hugues de Kerdrel and the Mission William team continue their observation and tagging of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) and scalloped hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna lewini) across the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Guinea, as they work to identify the first migratory routes of whale sharks in this region. The team has recently documented the presence of a juvenile whale shark in São Tomé for the first time.

The Mission William team continues to explore around the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe to document animal observations in identified hotspots. This year’s observations have proven particularly challenging due to sea conditions, with currents, swell, and winds far more extreme than previously encountered at this time of year.

Join us at Headquarters on September 8 to kick off our public lecture season and learn more about Hugues’s work with Mission William.

Hugues tagging a whale shark, and Mission William team member on observation. Courtesy of Hugues de Kerdrel

Ajay Sawant’s rescue and rehabilitation of free-ranging wildlife

Across forests, rescue centers, and elephant camps in India, Ajay Sawant’s recent fieldwork as a wildlife veterinarian has centered on conservation medicine at the frontline of human-wildlife coexistence. Working alongside forest department teams, he has responded to cases that span emergency rescue, disease surveillance, rehabilitation, and the long-term recovery of threatened wildlife.

The cases range from the rehabilitation of a jungle cat that had been illegally kept in captivity and domesticated, requiring both veterinary intervention and behavioral rehabilitation. Ajay also provided intensive care to orphaned chinkara and nilgai calves, supporting their survival through the most vulnerable stages of life with the goal of eventual release.

Most recently, Ajay was a part of the task force for the emergency elephant health mission in Jaipur following the unexplained death of an elephant in the region. Our multidisciplinary team examined 76 elephants, conducting comprehensive clinical assessments and investigate potential disease threats while helping protect one of India’s most culturally and ecologically significant elephant populations.

Courtesy of Ajay Sawant

Tomas Koeck documents the ‘ocean state’

Tomas Koeck has been busy working on his documentary series Ocean State: Rhode Island’s Wild Coast: filming whales, sharks, dolphins, and the amazing work of marine researchers. Offshore filming far off the coastline to capturing local stories, with a special focus on animals and events happening off the northeast coast that are not widely known, including hammerhead sharks, stingray, whale feeds and others. As a member of The Atlantic Shark Institute, Tomas documented the ASI tagging its first hammerhead shark in New England.

The Atlantic Shark Institute tagging its first hammerhead shark. Credit: Tomas Koeck

 

Paige Maroni & Polar BLAST survey Arctic Seafloor Biodiversity

In April 2026, Paige Maroni joined an expedition to Svalbard where she and Polar BLAST co-founder Tim Macdonald led Remotely Operated Vehicle surveys to document Arctic seafloor biodiversity. The expedition was filmed for an immersive Apple Vision Pro experience, allowing audiences to explore the Arctic and follow the expedition in an entirely new way.

“We completed ROV surveys around Svalbard and within the pack ice north of the archipelago, working in exceptionally challenging freezing and ice-covered conditions. The dives documented some fascinating habitats, including rare encrusting calcified red algal reef systems and active walrus feeding grounds, as well as diverse benthic communities that are rarely observed directly. One of the key takeaways was just how biologically rich and structurally complex the seafloor can be beneath what appears, from the surface, to be an extremely harsh and relatively featureless environment. The surveys also provide valuable baseline imagery from a rapidly changing part of the High Arctic.

From a behind-the-scenes perspective, operating the ROV in and around the pack ice was probably one of the most memorable aspects of the expedition. There is a fairly narrow window between finding an opening in the ice that is suitable for deployment, maintaining safe access to recover the vehicle, and collecting enough usable footage to make the dive scientifically worthwhile. It makes every successful survey feel quite significant.”

She is now preparing for the next Polar BLAST expedition to Northeast Greenland National Park in September. The project will aim to identify vulnerable marine ecosystems, revisit some high priority/unique and fragile dive sights identified in 2025, and build urgently needed ecological baselines for one of the least studied marine regions on Earth.

ROV Survey, Svalbard. Credit: Polar Blast

 

Zuzu Askin & Miyaru open Shark Conservation Center in the Maldives

On July 14th, Zuzu Askin opened the Maldives Shark Research & Conservation Centre on the island of Fuvahmulah, which hosts the world’s largest aggregation of tiger sharks. As the first dedicated facility in the country to advance scientific work and protection efforts for our planet’s most threatened apex predators, it serves an open space where science, shark education, and community can come together. It features an exhibit and museum area, sterile laboratory facility, outdoor event space and kitchen. By bringing together students, researchers, local communities, visitors, and decision-makers through events and workshops held at the Centre, they hope to foster collaboration, inspire learning, and strengthen the long-term conservation of the Maldives’ unique marine environment.

Zuzu and the team also just completed the first-ever deployment of fincams on tiger sharks in the Indian Ocean in collaboration with Dr. Yannis Papastamatiou. Equipped with temperature and depth sensors, a video camera and a gyroscope and accelerometer, these non-invasive, animal-borne cameras offer a rare window into the sharks’ lives beyond the reach of divers — revealing how they move through their environment, interact with other animals, and behave away from human activity.

Shark with fincam attached. Courtesy of Arzucan Askin.

 

Stay tuned for more updates from the Explorers Club 50!

Do you know an explorer changing the world that the world needs to know about?

Nominations for the EC50 Class of 2027 are open! Submit your nomination by August 30.