Pioneering research to protect and conserve Arctic whale populations is to begin under a new five-year collaboration between Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland and HX Expeditions (Hurtigruten Expeditions), a world leader in travel exploration.
The partners have signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), beginning in 2024, to research challenges facing marine life in the high Arctic – the most northern part of the Arctic region and one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.
The agreement will see Heriot-Watt University and HX work together on the Whales & Arctic Vessels Project (WAVE), a collaboration driven by the urgent need to better understand how often and where whales are encountering vessels in the high Arctic, and how whales are responding to these interactions – an area of research that remains largely unexplored.
Heriot-Watt University is the first UK university to partner with HX in a project of this scale. The collaboration will see the two organisations jointly publish findings, delivering impact reports and scientific results that will further the understanding of the pressures on Arctic whale populations and contribute to global conservation efforts.
The partnership will harness HX’s extensive expedition network and will benefit vastly from the company’s ability to engage both guest passengers and the wider public in this important environmental research. Heriot-Watt’s researchers will benefit from access to multiple vessels within the fleet, enabling scientists to conduct multi-year data collection in areas rarely surveyed. Passengers aboard HX ships on planned commercial voyages will also have the opportunity to participate in citizen science programmes, both contributing valuable data and allowing them to see how their contributions can make a difference.
Credit
Yuri Choufour
