Pen Hadow

As an explorer Pen Hadow has been a pioneering figure in the North Pole region through his expedition guide service, record-breaking feats, international research programmes, and now his conservation mission to protect the region’s biodiversity through an international agreement.

His iconic solo trek from Canada to the North Pole has never been repeated, and his leadership of non-governmental scientific exploration on the Arctic Ocean, through the Catlin Arctic Surveys 2008-12, is without equal. He has spent over 10,000 hours on the Arctic Ocean, and decades of work behind-the-scenes preparing for those hours on the sea ice. He has become one of Britain’s quintessential explorers, now committed to protecting our planet’s biodiversity and its life-supporting services for future generations through the ocean conservation charity, 90 North Foundation.

Pen Hadow believes exploration and conservation of the natural world has been never more urgent or important in human history, given the continued existence of humankind is becoming evermore obviously dependent on improving the understanding and management of our impacts on, and relationship with, the natural world’s resources, processes and systems.

90 North Foundation is exclusively dedicated to protecting the marine species in the world’s northernmost ocean waters, as the sea-ice habitat disappears and increasing vessel activity introduces additional stressors and risks. The Foundation undertakes research projects, public education programmes and conservation advocacy. The Foundation is focused on catalysing the policy-making community to secure, through an international legal instrument, the necessary conservation measures which will result in a North Pole Marine Reserve for the high seas of the Central Arctic Ocean.