Rolex honors heritage of exploration with African 'Perpetual Planet' expedition
January 31, 2023
Perpetual Planet
Since 2019, Rolex has been embracing that changing landscape of exploration through its Perpetual Planet initiative, supporting the work of exploring conservationists.
Part of this project involves the work of Rolex Awards for Enterprise winners, who work to protect the livability of the planet and the welfare of people. Rolex is also working with the National Geographic Society, collecting data in the fight against climate change.
Dr. Boyes is a National Geographic Explorer, leading one of the Great Spine of Africa expeditions along over 500 miles of the Lungwevungu River.
The river is a tributary water source of the Zambezi River, which is vital to 20 million people and an inordinate amount of plants and animals, supporting Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
The Great Spine of Africa Expeditions: Lungwevungu River – Ep. 2
Traversing the highlands of Angola to the border of Zambia, the team is collecting measurements and data on their journey. With his Rolex watch and team in tow, he is floating in dug-out “mekoro” canoes and camping along the river, documenting the data.
“It’s almost biblical,” said Dr. Boyes in a statement.
“During the day you are constantly stung, and at night beetles, flying ants and moths fill the air,” he said. “It’s a very difficult place to do science, to live, to do anything.”
Despite its importance, much of the Zambezi’s tributaries and life cycles is a mystery to scientists, making this expedition key in building local climate resilience. Being the birthplace of the Zambezi, the Lungwevungu is a key point in these conservation efforts.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="465"] Dr. Boyes takes measurements along the river, wearing his water-resistant watch. Image credit: Rolex[/caption]
The other expeditions taking place in the Spine of Africa will explore the Congo, Niger and Nile rivers– all just as important to 400 million Africans. Like this Lungwevungu expedition, much of the data collected is being sourced from places never studied by scientists before.
“If it’s measurable, we are absolutely going to measure it,” said Dr. Boyes in a statement.
“It is incredibly important for us to be able to measure change over time, to be able to pick up limits of acceptable change, then take those to the government and say that we need to change policy.”
Nature of luxury
Rolex is not alone in this undertaking of scientific exploration.
De Beers recently supported National Geographic’s conservation efforts in the Okavango Delta ( see story ).
Pomellato presents “The Price Of Freedom”
Ms. Monaghan is the first to use her voice in the video, with every other talent following suit. The film follows a choral format, with the collective completing each other’s sentences as sequences cut between multiple participants, who together uplift awareness of how financial constraints place publicly invisible control over women.
Economic abuse, while lacking a physical component, is a form of violence that removes autonomy from relationships, requiring that the woman be dependent on her partner. To identify these overarching signs of economic abuse, the jeweler commissioned research from the Italian university SDA Bocconi School of Management.
In turn, Pomellato and its representatives position financial monitoring or restriction, exploitation of women’s income and sabotage of personal work and time as the core tenets of the prevalent behavior in the film. Together, the voices speak on how economic support can lead to full dependence, how supposed care transforms into full control, as well as stating that financial constraints make other forms of abuse much more difficult to escape.
[caption id="attachment_432299" align="alignnone" width="465"] According to American nonprofit National Network to End Domestic Violence, economic abuse occurs in 99 percent of domestic violence cases. Image courtesy of Pomellato[/caption]
To further its goal of raising awareness, the maison is also continuing its ongoing partnerships with Casa di Accoglienza delle Donne Maltrattate, which is Milan's first anti-violence center for women, and the Los Angeles-based not-for-profit organization FreeFrom. The latter institution seeks to provide long-term financial security to domestic violence survivors.
Powerful messaging
Pomellato for Women has been active since 2017, its launch coinciding with the 50th an
