Africa: Inside the The Floating Lab Shaping Ocean Science

The first thing you notice is the size of the Dr Fridtjof Nansen. It towers over the quay as it is docked at the Port of Mombasa under the fluttering Kenyan flag.

The Norwegian-owned ship also operates under the United Nations flag, reflecting its mission to support countries in advancing sustainable ocean management through scientific cooperation. Dr Fridtjof Nansen is prominently painted across the vessel's hull. The state-of-the-art vessel is more than a ship. It is a gateway into the hidden world beneath the waves. Every voyage generates critical data on fisheries, biodiversity and climate change, helping countries make decisions that will shape the future of their oceans and the millions of people who depend on them.

But the real story begins once visitors step aboard.

Scientists, fisheries experts and crew members move through corridors and laboratories, eager to explain how this vessel is helping countries answer some of the most pressing questions facing the ocean today: Are fish stocks declining? How is climate change affecting marine ecosystems? How much plastic pollution is ending up at sea? And what does all this mean for food security?

It didn't take long, once I was aboard, to understand why a ship built to count fish and measure seawater would warrant a slot at a global ocean summit.

Here's what I learnt.

The vessel plays a critical role in strengthening the capacity of fisheries institutions and supporting scientists in developing the knowledge needed to protect marine ecosystems and promote sustainable use of ocean resources. It functions as a floating scientific platform, collecting data on fish populations, marine biodiversity, ocean health and the impacts of climate change. The ship is currently docked in Mombasa, where the 11th Our Ocean Conference took place. This was the first OOC to be held on African soil.

The research vessel Dr Fridtjof Nansen is named after the Norwegian explorer, scientist, and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen and serves as a floating research centre for marine science around the world. Nansen won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work after the First World War. He was an Arctic explorer, zoologist, and founder of the International Council for Sea Exploration.

The current vessel is the third in a lineage that began in 1975 with the launch of the first Dr Fridtjof Nansen. The pioneering ship conducted research surveys in nearly 60 countries across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean. Its successor, launched in 1993, travelled more than 605,000 nautical miles before being retired in 2016. The latest vessel, commissioned in 2017, builds on that legacy with state-of-the-art laboratories, advanced acoustic systems and ocean-monitoring equipment capable of supporting up to 30 scientists on a single expedition.

The ship is operated through a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Norway's Institute of Marine Research as part of the Nansen Programme, the longest-running fisheries development partnership. It works with 33 countries across Africa and the Bay of Bengal. The programme helps strengthen fisheries management, build scientific capacity and generate critical knowledge on marine ecosystems and fish stocks.

The information gathered during its missions helps governments make evidence-based decisions on fisheries, conservation and ocean governance, while contributing to the goals of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the sustainable development of blue economies worldwide.

Kathrine Michalsen, a survey coordinator from Norway's Institute of Marine Research, led us on a tour of the vessel. The ship is so large that the visit unfolds in stops and stations, with the group moving together from one point to the next. Her enthusiasm is infectious.

As Michalsen guided us, the vessel's quiet work became strikingly tangible. It sits at the intersection of three of the most pressing issues in ocean policy today: a changing climate, the gradual decline of fish stocks under industrial pressure, and the global effort to combat illegal fishing.

The trawl deck and the hangar

The first stop is the trawl deck, where Michalsen explained the three nets that do most of the vessel's heavy lifting: a bottom trawl for fish living near the seafloor, a pelagic trawl for fish in the open water column, and a setup that lets the crew cross-check both against whatever the ship's echo sounder is picking up overhead. It's the kind of detail that sounds technical until she puts it plainly. The nets exist to identify what the sonar sees, so a blip on a screen upstairs eventually becomes a named, measured fish down here.

From the trawl deck, we move into the environmental hangar, where three Kenyan scientists who had just spent three weeks aboard. They had surveyed from the Pemba Channel all the way north to Kiunga, on the Kenya–Somalia border, collecting critical data that will help inform fisheries management and marine conservation. The findings will provide critical evidence to guide fisheries management, conservation planning and broader ocean-based economic development.

A scientist from the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) walked us past a rosette sampler used to draw water at different depths for salinity, dissolved oxygen, ocean acidification and productivity readings, then on to the plankton nets themselves. Plankton, he said, can't swim against a current, so they drift with it, and that passivity is exactly what makes them useful.

Primarily, plankton are the foundation of the aquatic food webs. They are the source of food for the various marine organisms, he said. Plankton also provide clues about the health of marine ecosystems, helping researchers monitor productivity, pollution and the effects of climate change. They can be an early warning that something in the ecosystem isn't healthy. To collect samples, scientists deploy sophisticated nets and a rosette sampler capable of gathering water from different depths. The samples are then analysed for salinity, dissolved oxygen, ocean acidification and other environmental indicators.

The scientist points out a manta net used to sample both fish and floating plastic.

"Plastic pollution is the next elephant in the room," he said, "Unfortunately, we went offshore, but we were still able to get some plastic there."

He warned that there could be more plastic than fish in the water within fifty years. The information collected during these surveys helps scientists identify the most common types of plastic pollution and provide evidence to policymakers. The warning reflects growing global concern over marine plastic pollution and its impact on fish, seabirds and marine mammals.

Another crucial part of the survey involves collecting fish larvae, essentially the next generation of fish populations.

Last in the hangar were the bongo nets used to catch fish larvae.

Sampling larvae lets researchers project future recruitment into the fish population and identify breeding seasons, which is how KMFRI now advises Kenya's Fisheries Service. Protecting fish during spawning periods allows populations to recover, supporting both biodiversity and the livelihoods that depend on healthy fisheries. Because juvenile fish of different species often look identical, he said, some samples need DNA barcoding to confirm exactly what's been caught.

We moved to the next room, where the microscopy work. They could spend hours isolating and identifying organisms by eye.

According to the scientist, the purpose of taking samples is the determination and analysis of the most common kinds of plastic pollution. This scientific approach allows researchers to generate data on the different polymers present and assess what is most common. The aim is to ensure that responses are evidence-based and can directly inform policymakers, who can then use this information to introduce targeted regulations and even bans, similar to previous restrictions on plastic bags that encouraged more environmentally friendly alternatives. Ultimately, the goal is to address plastic pollution at its source by providing a clear, data-driven picture of what is most widely found in the environment and within bodies.

"We need to profile the different plastics which are more abundant," he said. "Then we can inform policymakers so they can stop it at the source."

From the hangar, we head to the fisheries lab, introduced by a senior KMFRI scientist as the place where every fish brought up by the trawl gets, in her words, "vetted", checked against known records, the way a parcel gets checked against its paperwork. Anything that doesn't match an existing record is treated as a possible new find and set aside for further investigation, sometimes including DNA barcoding to settle the question properly.

A treasure trove beneath the waves

In the fisheries laboratory, rows of specimens collected during the Kenyan survey offer a glimpse into the country's rich marine biodiversity.

In the wet lab, the catch from the most recent survey is laid out for identification: tuna, parrotfish, two species of shark, a stingray, pufferfish, flatfish lying flat with both eyes on one side of its head. Someone asks how many fish species exist in Kenyan waters altogether. Around 1,600 comes the answer. Scientists identified approximately 300 species during the latest survey alone. That is only a fraction of Kenya's marine diversity.

Every catch is carefully sorted, measured and identified. Any species that cannot immediately be classified is subjected to further investigation, including DNA barcoding. "What is not appearing in all fish records is treated as something new," he said. "So it is subject to further investigation."

The possibility of discovering previously undocumented species remains very real.

The EAF-Nansen Programme has played a key role in identifying and documenting marine biodiversity. In regions covered by the Programme, extensive surveys conducted by the research vessel Dr Fridtjof Nansen have led to the identification of 90 new marine species. Findings from these studies contribute valuable knowledge about the complexity of marine ecosystems, assisting countries in making informed decisions about the sustainable use of marine resources in support of livelihoods and food security.

Turning echoes into answers

Perhaps the most impressive room aboard the vessel is the acoustic laboratory, often described as "the brain of the vessel." Here, scientists process enormous quantities of data generated during surveys. "The most important equipment on this vessel is the echo sounder," said Michalsen. "It works the same way a bat hunts, sending sound down into the water and reading the echo that bounces back off whatever's down there".

"We are sending a sound wave down into the ocean. The sound wave hits our target, the fish sends the echo back to us," she said. The image that comes back on screen shows where the fish are sitting in the water column, and roughly how big they are, and even whether they have a swim bladder. To identify which species are present, researchers combine acoustic information with samples collected in the fisheries laboratory. The result is a detailed picture of fish populations that can guide management decisions and stock assessments.

According to Michalsen, a single scientific survey can generate enormous amounts of information. A single survey, she said, can generate up to eight terabytes of data, all of which is handed over to the country where the work took place.

On fisheries operations, she said that most of the catch taken during surveys is used for scientific research, helping to improve the understanding of species. They stressed that the vessel is not a commercial fishing boat, so efforts are made to minimise waste. In some cases, unavoidable bycatch is released, and occasionally small amounts are used for food on board, but there is no system for large-scale retention of fish.

So what gives them hope when they look at the data from the vessel?

Michalsen said that in many of the places Dr Fridtjof Nansen visits, this is the only fisheries-independent data those countries will ever get, information no domestic fishing fleet could generate on its own, used directly in how they manage their own waters. But what moves her more, she said, is watching the people: returning to the ship across different surveys and watching the same scientists take on more responsibility each time. That, she said, is the real result.

As climate change, overfishing and pollution place growing pressure on marine ecosystems, the role of vessels like the Dr Fridtjof Nansen is becoming increasingly important. The ship's mission extends beyond collecting scientific data. It is helping countries build the knowledge needed to manage their marine resources sustainably and adapt to a rapidly changing ocean.

Standing on deck overlooking Mombasa's harbour, it became clear that the vessel is much more than a ship.