Norfolk Island expedition 2025
Meet the scientists involved in the next phase of the Australian Museum’s Norfolk Island expedition.
The Norfolk Island expedition: Phase 2
The Australian Museum (AM), known for its exciting scientific expeditions to places like Lord Howe Island, Balls Pyramid and the Solomon Islands, is conducting scientific research on Norfolk Island for its 2022-2025 expedition. Norfolk Island has a diverse environment and notable historic sites offering a unique heritage seldom found elsewhere around the world.
The AM is embarking on the second phase of its Norfolk Island scientific expedition from Monday 5 May to Thursday 5 June. This phase of the expedition will focus on shallow marine biodiversity surveys to understand climate change impacts and species distribution. Joining the AM scientists will be scientists from the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Auckland War Memorial Museum and the University of Sydney.
The scientists will undertake shore and vessel-based activities to collect fish and marine invertebrates such as worms, crabs and molluscs as well as algae. Working from shore will involve wading and snorkelling, and scuba diving will be used to collect specimens from the Manakai, a New Zealand based research vessel chartered for the expedition. While the scientists are working to expand our knowledge of the marine environment, a team of educators will be contributing to the development of young minds through an education program at the Norfolk Island school.
Current plans are subject to weather.
Meet the scientists
Community feedback, engagement and consultation is crucial to the Australian Museum’s shared understanding of the history and biodiversity of Norfolk Island. The Museum warmly invites all community members to meet with the scientists to take part in that conversation during activities from Monday 12 May to Saturday 17 May.
Tuesday 13 May
Join the Australian Museum team at the Norfolk Island National Park Science at Sunset seminar series for a talk to learn more about the second phase of the expedition.
When: 5.30pm, Tuesday 13 May
Where: Knowledge and Learning centre
Saturday 17 May
An expedition open day will be held at Rawson Hall as a show-and-tell for the community. Light refreshments will be available.
When: 9am–12pm, Saturday 17 May
Where: Rawson Hall, Taylors Road
Daily, Monday 12 May - Friday 16 May
Each day of the expedition, scientists will be available to talk with community members to discuss the progress of the fieldwork and hear your contributions.
The Olive Café, 8am–9am (*For Wednesday morning, we will be at the Golden Orb café)
Meet the AM Scientists
Do you have any questions about the Norfolk Island expedition? Please contact AMRI using the form below.
Contact AMRI
Norfolk Island is located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia, 1,412 kilometres (877 mi) directly east of Australia's Evans Head and about 900 kilometres (560 mi) from Lord Howe Island. Together with the neighbouring Phillip Island and Nepean Island, the three islands collectively form the Territory of Norfolk Island. At the 2021 ABS census, it had 2,188 inhabitants living on a total area of about 35 km2 (14 sq mi), its capital is Kingston.
The first known settlers in Norfolk Island were East Polynesians but they had already departed when Great Britain settled it as part of its 1788 settlement of Australia. The island served as a convict penal settlement from 6 March 1788 until 5 May 1855, except for an 11-year hiatus between 15 February 1814 and 6 June 1825, when it lay abandoned. On 8 June 1856, permanent civilian residence on the island began when descendants of the Bounty mutineers were relocated from Pitcairn Island. In 1914 the UK handed Norfolk Island over to Australia to administer as an external territory, but as a distinct and separate settlement.
This remote island is also of major biological importance, still relatively poorly understood in a marine sense, and has many rare and endangered species unique to the island and surrounding area. This expedition offers a rare opportunity to survey nearshore biodiversity not impacted by commercial fishing with an expectation of discovering new species amongst its broad array of unique habitats. Changing global weather patterns and oceanic circulation impacts marine fauna and a key goal of this expedition will be looking for evidence of changes in distributions of open water and nearshore vertebrate and invertebrate marine species.
On the Islands themselves, the status and origins of NI terrestrial fauna will benefit from further scientific investigation. The AM will clarify the status of vertebrate and invertebrate species, native and introduced, on the main and offshore islands to inform management of these areas and contribute to an understanding of the origins of these species and how they fit into the global puzzle of species radiation to inform management of the fauna on other similarly remote islands. An example of how AM scientists can work together with Norfolk Islanders to promote conservation management, is the recent rediscovery of land snail Advena campbellii by Norfolk Island local Mark Scott in 2020, leading to a conservation program initiated by the AM.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We acknowledge the Polynesian/Tupuna/Tipuna who first called Norfolk Island home, whose story is still being written and pieced together. Through our work, we endeavour to add pages to their widely unknown narrative. We honour their connection to this land/whenua/fauna in times gone by and invite them to guide and breathe life back into the treasures which they left for us to uncover and to piece together the story they did not tell.
We extend that acknowledgement to the descendants of the Pitcairn Islanders who still walk this land and whose Polynesian ties link them back to the East of this Great Ocean – Tahiti. We honour their Pacific story on this land, we acknowledge their Tupuna/Tipuna ancestors and the culture they forged here on Norfolk Island. A culture that continues to thrive today.
And finally, we acknowledge the other Pacific Island communities that now call this Island home. The Pacific diasporas from across the Great Ocean – whose connection to this land may be more recent but whose presence also adds to the Pacific narrative of Norfolk Island in the here and now.
THANK YOU
The Australian Museum would like to thank donors and the Australian Museum Foundation for their support of this expedition.
