A Polar Secretariat for the Belgian Research Station
Posted on the 06.06.2010 by Michel Brent
Following the donation of the Princess Elisabeth Research Station by the International Polar Foundation last April, the Belgian Government has set up a new separately-managed State Institution, the Polar Secretariat, with Alain Hubert as its Chair.
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For many years already and undoubtedly for still many more, Alain Hubert has been/will be spending the four winter months (our winter) at the Belgian Princess Elisabeth Research Station. It was with the Foundation’s entire team that he developed the revolutionary concept of a Zero Emission Station and was able to get it constructed with the help of private funds. And it was finally he who had the idea of donating this tool to his beloved country, Belgium.
“It shouldn’t be forgotten”, Hubert explained, “that Belgium was one of the signatory countries of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959-1961. The other countries were South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Chile, the United States, France, Japan, Norway, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the USSR. It should also be remembered that the main aim of this Treaty is to ensure, in the interest of humanity as a whole, that the Antarctic would continue to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and would become neither a theatre nor an issue of international disagreement. Belgium had no longer had an ice station in the Antarctic for more than forty-five years. By building this station, I wanted to regild the Belgian polar blazon somewhat, to instil a new dynamic into the concept of fundamental research into the environment and global warming. But also to show that it is possible to change our relationship with energy completely: building in the Antarctic the first “micro smart grid” in the world means building an energy generation unit that is thrice as efficient as anything that exists today! And if this can successfully be done in such an environment, it can be done in Belgium. Achieving a drastic 60% reduction of CO2 emissions over the next thirty years is therefore possible. So what are we waiting for, since this is only economic and social development of our Western societies that is possible?”
On the first of April 2010, the station was given to Belgium
When Alain Hubert and his team returned from the 6th Continent last February, the construction of the base was finished. All that remained was to donate this tool to the country. That happened a few weeks later. On 01 April indeed, the Federal Minister for Belgian Scientific Policy and Alain Hubert, the IPF Chair, signed an agreement stipulating that, in addition to the donation of the Princess Elisabeth Research Station to the State and the creation of the Polar Secretariat, the totality of the base’s operations would be entrusted to the International Polar Foundation, in view of its local expertise and efficacy.
It must be said that the Belgian Research Station did not have to wait for the signing of this agreement before starting to attract the interest of the international scientific community, and especially that of polar-oriented researchers: for two years indeed and even when the construction had still to be completed, Belgian, French, Japanese, British, American, South-African, Russian and even Czech scientists have followed hard on each other’s heels to the station, working in fields as varied as glaciology, geology, geomorphology, meteorite research, microbiology, gravimetry or the chemistry of the atmosphere, to mention only a few.
It remains to be hoped that the Belgian political climate will calm down somewhat and that our country will quickly regain its polar lustre of yesteryear. It has in any case a marvellous tool for so doing...
The belgian research station Princess Elisabeth in Sor Rondane-Antarctica
© René Robert / IPF
