2002
The first expedition happened in 2002 and it included the mapping of 31 underwater canyons in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park to discover what habitats were suitable for the coelacanth. This assisted scientists in coming up with a plan regarding which areas would be best to dive into. All habitat information was gathered including temperature, currents, animals, plants, and depth to determine the most likely areas coelacanths would live. The Jesser and Wright Canyons of Greater St Lucia Wetland Park ended up being the stomping grounds for the local coelacanth.
Not only did ACEP learn a lot about coelacanths during this process, but the area was little know to scientists before Phase I. This opened up a world of data not only on the prehistoric fish, but also about marine life in theses South African canyons. This included many different specimens that had never been studied before.
After Phase I was complete, all the data collected by ACEP was inventoried. This included all the research collected from 10 cruise expeditions and 3 shore expeditions. At the end there were 258 unique records.
2003
At the end of 2003, the ACEP hosted a conference to determine the future of the programme. The outcome of that conference was that the attendees felt that the ACEP was on the right track with their regional and integrated approach but should also add more technical and experimental analyses to their work.
2007
Phase II began in 2007 with funding from the NRF. Phase II opened up the possibility for other South African researchers to apply for funding through ACEP. The objectives for Phase II include better understanding of the South West Indian Ocean ecosystem, discover evolutionary adaptations of the ecosystem, long term monitoring of the area to understand biology, determine species biodiversity and biogeography, provide recommendations for conservation and sustainability, building more capacity in the offshore marine sciences, promote public awareness, and promote ACEP as a global platform for South African marine science.
2011
In June of 2011 a Japanese expedition lead by Aquamarine Fukushima and partially funded by ACEP discovered and got video of the first ever sighting of juvenile coelacanth.
