Cover Steve Boyes using an advanced instrument to collect water quality data about the Lungwebungu River (Photo: Rolex)
Steve Boyes using an advanced instrument to collect water quality data about the Lungwebungu River (Photo: Rolex)
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With the support of Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative, explorer Steve Boyes kicks off his Great Spine of Africa project with an expedition down Africa’s Lungwebungu River
For nearly a century, Rolex has supported explorers who push the boundaries of human endeavour in their various ways. This has, over time, evolved from a focus on exploration for discovery’s sake to one centred on protecting the planet, which precipitated the launch of the Perpetual Planet Initiative in 2019. Through this programme, the brand partners with individuals and organisations that are working to better understand—and solve—the environmental challenges we face today.
Among them is South African explorer and conservationist Steve Boyes, who has toiled for over a decade to chart and protect Africa’s inland wildernesses. His latest project, the Great Spine of Africa, is a planned series of expeditions into the heart of the continent to survey its environments across several different measures. With the support of Rolex and other partners, Boyes recently led his multidisciplinary team to complete this project’s first expedition.
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Above Led by South African explorer and conservationist Steve Boyes, the first expedition of the Great Spine of Africa project saw the multidisciplinary team of scientists navigating rapids, areas populated by large crocodiles and hippos, as well as floodplains (Photo: Rolex)
Led by South African explorer and conservationist Steve Boyes, the first expedition of the Great Spine of Africa project saw the multidisciplinary team of scientists navigating rapids, areas populated by large crocodiles and hippos, as well as floodplains (Photo: Rolex)
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The Great Spine of Africa series of expeditions is the culmination of Boyes’s work thus far. The ornithologist and conservation biologist first came to prominence with his biodiversity surveys of the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana, which took place annually from 2010. Conducted from dugout canoes called mekoro that Boyes and his team would propel and steer using long poles, these surveys saw the explorer travelling more than 12,000 kilometres in the Okavango River Basin over the years.
In 2015, Boyes launched what would become known as the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project. The multi‑year effort sought the preservation of the Angolan highlands, which form the Okavango Delta’s watershed, and led to numerous discoveries, including more than 140 new species. The first expedition of the project also made a crucial discovery dubbed the Okavango‑Zambezi Water Tower.
Comprising elevated areas of forest and peatlands with high rainfall, the “water tower” acts as a massive sponge that holds water to feed the region’s rivers, even during drier periods. This crucial geographic feature faces the threat of climate change as temperatures rise and weather patterns change.
Grand Survey
The Great Spine of Africa initiative seeks to build on the discovery of the Okavango‑Zambezi Water Tower. Named for the topography that delineates the watersheds of several major rivers in Africa, the project will undertake a series of expeditions to study these crucial waterways, with the aim of better understanding and protecting them.
The first such expedition took place in June 2022. Under Boyes’s leadership, a multidisciplinary team of scientists, including experts in environmental DNA (eDNA), ecology and baseline river surveys, explored the remote Angolan highlands where the Lungwebungu River originates. Boyes and his team believe that this tributary of the Zambezi could be its source, and thus a determining factor in assessing threats to the river. In total, the team travelled 900 kilometres down the Lungwebungu River, collecting baseline data on its hydrology, biodiversity, threats and ecosystem health along the way, before ending the expedition at the Angola‑Zambia border.
Above The team traversed the Lungwebungu River from its source in Angola to the border with Zambia (Photo: Rolex)
The team traversed the Lungwebungu River from its source in Angola to the border with Zambia (Photo: Rolex)
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The data collection techniques used on the expedition were rigorous and varied, which in turn enabled the team to log extensive records across multiple dimensions. Human settlements and wildlife sightings were noted. Habitats were documented with photography and drone footage every 10 kilometres. Fishes and aquatic invertebrates were examined, and eDNA samples gathered from the water. The water itself was analysed to create a snapshot of the river’s structure, flow and water quality at various points along the 900‑kilometre route.
Such painstaking work has created a rigorous baseline of information, which future surveys can build on to track changes over time. The ultimate aim, of course, is to enable scientists and governments to make informed policy decisions. This is especially critical given the sheer environmental and economic value the rivers represent: the Zambezi River alone supports more than 20 million Africans as well as countless species of flora and fauna in the area it winds through.
The wider ramifications of the Great Spine of Africa series of expeditions is even greater. “Working to save [the rivers] will represent long‑term security from the impacts of global warming for the more than 400 million people living in Africa’s major river basins,” declares Boyes, “and for the over two‑thirds of all Africans that depend on the ecological services provided by these major drainages.”
Above Steve Boyes and the expedition team celebrate as they reach the bank on the final day of the Lungwevungu expedition, where the river crosses the border from Angola into Zambia and joins the Zambezi River (Photo: Rolex)
Steve Boyes and the expedition team celebrate as they reach the bank on the final day of the Lungwevungu expedition, where the river crosses the border from Angola into Zambia and joins the Zambezi River (Photo: Rolex)
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The expedition team is currently working on the next phase of the project, which involves the self‑propelled navigations of the Congo and Nile rivers as well as their major tributaries. In total, the project expects to cover some 40,000 kilometres across all its expeditions.
With the Perpetual Planet Initiative, Rolex has been able to back an ever‑expanding portfolio of projects that are working in various capacities all over the world. Apart from the Great Spine of Africa series of expeditions, some other initiatives that the brand is currently supporting include Coral Gardeners, which is working to transplant resilient corals to reefs; the B.I.G expedition to the North Pole in 2023 that will gather data on threats to the Arctic; and the Monaco Blue Initiative, which brings together ocean conservation experts for in‑depth collaboration.
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