Rolex, through the Perpetual Planet Initiative, supports Under the Pole underwater exploration missions. Two experienced divers and co-founders of the program, Ghylaine Bardou and Emmanuel Perrier-Bardou, took their team on a dive into the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean and discovered for the first time in the region an important ecosystem called the sea forest. animals.

At a depth of 30 to 200 meters in the mesophotic zone, the ocean has very limited illumination. In this eerie landscape that seems to have emerged from the twilight zone, organisms dependent on sunlight cannot survive. It has an ecosystem dominated by animals such as corals, gorgonians (soft corals) and sponges that cling to rocks.

Conditions in these deep sea forests are more stable than in the open ocean and provide opportunities for protected underwater life, although they are rarely included in marine protected areas. And, unfortunately, unlike the forests we encounter on land, many underwater forests remain unknown and misunderstood. This is exactly what Under The Pole is trying to change. This is a research team of experienced divers and marine scientists who travel around the world and make important scientific discoveries.

Funded by the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, the Under The Pole IV – DEEPLIFE 2021-2030 expedition series has launched to study and document marine life forests in all of the planet’s oceans to better understand how submarines operate these worlds and how we can protect them.

The first expedition took place in the Svalbard archipelago, off the coast of northern Norway. The biodiversity of the Arctic is under threat of extinction on the planet. That’s because it’s warming faster than anywhere else, and the floating sea ice that covers most of the Arctic Ocean has halved in the last 40 years. The mission of scientists is to discover and study the forests of marine animals, inform the world about these vulnerable ecosystems and find ways to protect them.

The first dives in the Svalbard archipelago did not bear fruit. But on the latest dive, they discovered the first forest of marine animals in the Arctic, at a depth of 50 to 80 meters. It consists of hydroids, that is, organisms related to jellyfish and corals, and is shaped like bluebells, flowers and ferns.

First, the team took a close look at the maps to identify areas most likely to have rich underwater life. Vital was the strong ocean currents that carry nutrients and support forests of marine animals.

The research team’s vessel traveled through the ice of the Arctic Ocean, with temperatures typically below -30°C, and its members had to dive several times into inhospitable icy waters, in areas never before visited by man, in order to find the forest. It goes without saying that for such great depths, special equipment was required (rebreathers, i.e., breathing apparatus of a closed or semi-closed type), which recirculate unused oxygen during exhalation, thereby increasing the dive time. Despite extreme conditions and hardships, the mission was a success.

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devotion to the planet

Rolex has been helping in these endeavors for nearly a century. As early as the 1930s, Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf treated the planet Earth as a living laboratory and tested his watches under the most extreme conditions, on the wrists of explorers and daring individuals with foresight and curiosity who traveled to unknown places and embraced adventure. In the 21st century, exploration missions are motivated not only by the joy of discovery, but also by the study and protection of the environment, the search for solutions that will make the planet eternally sustainable. To that end, Rolex has a long-standing partnership with the National Geographic Society to study the effects of climate change, as well as legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue initiative to protect the oceans with a network of protected Hopes. Spots (Regions of Hope).

In 2019, Rolex launched the Perpetual Planet global campaign. Some of the latest Rolex collaborations under the Eternal Planet initiative are with wildlife photographers Christina Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen, with Rewilding Argentina and Rewilding Chile to protect areas of South America, with Coral Gardeners replanting resistant corals into reefs, with Steve Boyce and The New York Times. Expeditions “The Great Ridge of Africa”, exploring the great basins of Africa, and, of course, underwater expeditions “Under the Pole”.

One of the main pillars of the Perpetual Planet campaign is the Rolex Entrepreneurship Awards, an institution founded by a Swiss company in 1976 to financially support innovative men and women who help to better understand the world we live in and contribute to its improvement. y human life and the protection of the environment and world heritage.

More information Here.