Kiwi student to join leg of Tara expedition

Kiwi student to join leg of Tara expedition

The famous schooner which once belonged to Sir Peter Blake will pick up a special guest on its way to an historic stopover in Auckland on July 1.

University of Auckland science student Neelam Hari, 23, will join the crew of the Tara Expedition as an observer on its leg between Suva and Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour.

Neelam was selected for the once-in-a-lifetime trip by the French-based ePOP project, or e-Participatory Observers Project. It aims to implement an international network of young observers to raise awareness on climate and environmental change issues.

As the New Zealand ePOP environmental ambassador, her first role is to fly to Fiji to board the Tara when it docks in Suva on June 7.

“We’re really happy and lucky to be able to organise such a travel for a young New Zealander, it is the link between Pacific Island countries and a more developed country,” says Mina Vilayleck, ePOP Coordinator at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD, based in Noumea).

While on board Neelam will shoot a short film about climate and environmental change on a smartphone.

“This experience is such an incredible honour and it will stretch me right out of my comfort zone,” says Neelam, 23, who is in the final year of a Master of Science degree.

“It’s so special to be able see first-hand how our environment and our oceans are changing. I’m sure I will come home with many stories to share.”

The icebreaker Tara once belonged to Sir Peter Blake and is the boat on which he was killed by pirates in the Amazon in 2001. Then known as Seamaster, it is the first time it has returned to New Zealand shores since.

The Tara Oceanic Expedition is part way through a two-year environmental survey across the Pacific Ocean. The schooner was renamed by a French philanthropist and family friend of Sir Peter Blake, who has funded the vessel since 2003 to cross all the world’s oceans conducting research and informing on climate change.

The ePOP project is a separate initiative to raise awareness of island nations’ vulnerability to climate change. The organisation is funding ten young Pacific ambassadors to create three to four-minute films about the environmental issues facing their own oceans.

Neelam is the only New Zealand ambassador with the others from New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji. The ambassadors are in Suva this week to be trained in journalism and editing techniques, and to attend the Pacific Voice for a Global Ocean Conference which is taking place at the University of the South Pacific.

The ambassadors will then embark on individual adventures, with Neelam selected to join the Tara Expedition.

While Neelam’s research area is in the mechanics of the human eye, her supervisor Dr Frederique Vanholsbeeck nominated her because of her strength as a science communicator.

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