KATHMANDU, AUGUST 18 Abdullah Rubaet Chowdhury, a cultural anthropologist, policy expert and social scientist at the University of Heidelberg, has been named the 2026 Elodie Sandford Explorer by the UK-based Scientific Exploration Society (SES) for an expedition to document indigenous ecological knowledge in Nepal's Mustang. The award recognises Chowdhury's year-long expedition focusing on the Bön community's traditional ecological knowledge, which the project describes as a knowledge tradition dating back around 18,000 years. The expedition will be conducted in the high-altitude trans-Himalayan region of Mustang, including the Kali Gandaki Gorge, and will examine how Bön communities' relationship with nature can contribute to contemporary approaches to climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation. Chowdhury and his team will work with Bön spiritual leaders and young people to document their knowledge using an Indigenous 'ethnophotography' approach. The project aims to jointly develop conservation indicators, participatory maps and a community-owned field film rather than applying a conventional top-down research model. According to the project, the community will retain ownership of the documented heritage and knowledge. The expedition's findings are planned to be shared with the UN Global Biodiversity Framework, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat and Nepal's Ministry of Forests and Environment. An exhibition is also planned at Heidelberg University's Ethnography Museum and the University of Kathmandu. The Scientific Exploration Society supports expeditions combining exploration, scientific research and conservation. The SES Elodie Sandford Explorer award is presented to explorers undertaking significant scientific and conservation-oriented expeditions.