Thursday, September 24, 5:00pm – Scientific Tourism: From Exploration to a Global Model

Can tourism do more than reduce its environmental footprint, and instead actively contribute to scientific knowledge, conservation, and the sustainable development of destinations?

Scientific tourism is emerging at the intersection of research, conservation, exploration, and travel, creating new possibilities for scientists, communities, destinations, knowledge institutions, and the tourism industry to work together.

From providing access and infrastructure for scientific fieldwork to translating research into meaningful travel experiences, the model challenges us to reconsider the role tourism can play in understanding and protecting the places where we do research.

Join leaders in scientific tourism governance, educational travel, responsible tourism, and climate communication to examine what it would take to move scientific tourism from individual expeditions and specialized experiences toward a credible, responsible, and scalable global model.

Drawing on lessons from real-world initiatives, this event will explore the institutional partnerships, safeguards, ethics, traveler demand, and market conditions needed to connect science and tourism without compromising scientific integrity or the ecosystems and communities involved.

This all drives the central question: How can exploration and travel help expand the reach of science while creating lasting value for the places that make discovery possible?

Featuring:

Monica Fonseca (Moderator) — Journalist & TV Presenter; UN Environment Ambassador
María José Abuabara, MI’26 — Scientific Tourism Governance & International Partnerships; Board Member, Daniels Philanthropies
Rachel Griffin — Vice President, Development of Arrangements Abroad
Matt Berna — Senior Vice President, USA of Intrepid Travel
Will Bolsover — Founder & CEO of Natural World Safaris

Thursday, September 24, 7:00pm – A Plan B for the Planet? Environmental Observations and Technologies for the Future

Join us for a conversation of critical importance with opening remarks by three Trustees of The Explorers Club: Frederik Paulsen, Mikkel Vestergaard, and L. M. Levie, followed by leaders from climate research, communication and government.

The consequences of climate change are now part of our daily news cycle. How do the observations we make shape the decisions taken in corporate boardrooms, family offices, institutions, and governments? How do we rethink security and economic risk in a changing world?

Do we have the right tools to inform our decisions? And, ultimately, do we have the technologies to prevent planetary-scale catastrophes?

Frederik Paulsen, Chairman Emeritus, Ferring Pharmaceuticals
Mikkel Vestergaard, Founder and CEO, Sceye
L. M. Levie, Chairman, American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC)
Dr. Julie Pullen, Independent Earth System Scientist and Technologist
Vidar Helgesen, Executive Secretary, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, UNESCO
Marianne Hagen, Co-Lead, Seabed Curtain Project, and former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway
Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune, Moderator
Aniket Ghai, Senior Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States