TARA OCEAN FOUNDATION
When Agnès Troublé, better known as French fashion designer agnès b, launched Tara Ocean Foundation in 2003, she had no clue about marine research. What she did know was that one of its main protagonists, Sir Peter Blake, had recently died on an expedition aboard his 36m research sailing vessel, Seamaster. The man best known for his America’s Cup victories was killed by pirates on the Amazon River while measuring environmental change.
Coming from a family who had been passionate about the sea for generations, Troublé and her son Etienne Bourgeois purchased Seamaster.
They renamed it Tara and started France’s first foundation dedicated to the world’s oceans. “My aunt and cousin knew about fashion but not much about the logistics of operating a research vessel, so I became the operations head,” says Tara’s
CEO, Romain Troublé, a molecular biologist and former America’s Cup sailor who is Agnès’s nephew. Romain understood that ocean research was then in its infancy and that scientists needed reliable data to clearly interpret trends. “I also knew it would take a more holistic approach to understand the many connections happening in the water.”
With smaller financial means than the other
Ocean Keepers, he describes the foundation as “David versus Goliath”. Like the biblical
David, Tara has accomplished great deeds in the past 18 years, including research expeditions to Greenland, Antarctica, the Arctic, the Mediterranean and the Pacific. Unlike the other research vessels, Tara conducts four-year studies to better grasp the nuances of microenvironmental change.
“For depth of research, that makes sense,” Romain says. “It lets us compare smaller, local systems with the big data we have in hand.”
Its latest project, studying the ocean’s microbiome, or the microbes that make up around 70 per cent of the water’s biomass, is creating a new realm of ocean research. “It’s much larger than the sum of its parts – the plankton, viruses and bacteria and other microorganisms. It’s a complete living being. We want to understand how this microbiome functions as a whole, and whether it is sensitive to plastic pollution or to the ongoing warming of the ocean.”
Tara has already spent 10 years and nearly US$100 million studying viruses, bacteria and plankton. The microbiome project will be a much more in-depth undertaking that involves DNA sequencing and imaging, as well as rigorous measurement of environmental parameters.
On its expeditions, Tara brings together scientists from 25 laboratories in 10 countries; it has even collaborated with NASA. The foundation also has Special Observer status at the United Nations. In a very French twist, Tara hosts 10 artists to paint, draw and photograph on each expedition. “It’s like the great explorers of the 17th century who sailed the oceans to discover new worlds,” says Romain. “Now we’re discovering new worlds beneath the surface.”