EXPLORER, advocate and visionary, the Arctic adventurer Pen Hadow will invite audience members to join him on a Herculean rest-of-life mission when he visits Lighthouse, Poole on Friday, April 5 at 7.45pm

Following in the inspirational footsteps of conservationist Sir Peter Scott, the founder of WWF and son of the famous Captain Robert Falcon Scott (aka Scott of the Antarctic), Pen is dedicating the rest of his life to advancing the process within the United Nations that will create a North Pole marine reserve by 2032 to protect its iconic wildlife from multiple human threats.

Hadow leads the High Seas Conservation Unit charity that advocates an international agreement to create a protected area for the international waters of the Arctic Ocean. He is also director of the annual scientific research and public engagement programme, Arctic Mission, that supports the Unit’s work.

In 2017 Arctic Mission sailed two 50-foot yachts into the North Pole’s international waters, the first non-ice breaking vessels to do so, demonstrating the increasing accessibility of these waters to surface commercial shipping, fishing, tourism and mineral extraction, and therefore the emerging human threat to the wildlife already stressed by the reduced sea-ice cover.