international
polar
foundation

On Sunday 1st December, the International Polar Foundation, together with APECS Belgium, was present at the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences in Bruxelles to celebrate Antarctica Day - the anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty - with the visitors of the Museum’s temporary Antarctic exhibition.

Ever since the first teams of scientists from the CHASE, MASS2ANT and POPE projects arrived on the first ever intercontinental flight to Perseus Airstrip on 22 November, all have been acclimating to life in Antarctica and getting started on their research.

On 22 November, the new Perseus Airstrip, located just 60 km north of the Princess Elisabeth Station, welcomed its first intercontinental flight when an Ilyushin 76 plane carrying the first scientists of the 2019-2020 season from Cape Town touched down just after 18:00 UTC.

In close partnership with the Mission of Canada to the EU, BOZAR, and its many Arctic Futures Symposium partners, the International Polar Foundation co-organised a highly successful second edition of the Arctic Shorts film evening at BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels on Monday 18 November.

This week, at a ceremony in Fleurus, Belgium, Komatsu Europe International presented the International Polar Foundation with a state of the art HB215LC-1 hybrid excavator, which will go into use support polar science at Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

The summer of 2019 passed so quickly. It seems like only yesterday that the BELARE team packed up their gear and prepared the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station for overwintering.

On the evening of 5 November, the first 12 members of the station team (including team leader Alain Hubert, field guides, engineers, mechanics, a doctor, and a cook) arrived at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station to officially start the 2019-2020 Belgian Antarctic Research Expedition (BELARE)season. They wasted no time in getting the station up and running!

The International Polar Foundation and its Arctic Futures partners are pleased to invite you all to the second annual Arctic Shorts Film evening. The Arctic Shorts night aims to repeat the great success of last-year’s first edition in raising awareness about the Arctic to the general public.

Over the last ten seasons, the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station has seen a lot more visitors than originally expected. The popularity of the world’s first zero-emission polar research station with the scientific community has been a welcome surprise.

Originally the Princess Elisabeth station was designed to host about 20 scientists and staff at a time. During a few weeks the peak of the 2018-2019 season, the station was hosting nearly 50 people at once! In order to welcome such a large number of guests and handle increased activity around the station, a number of “home improvements” have been undertaken at the station over the last few seasons.

After a hiatus, we would like to welcome back our regular readers to the official website of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, the world's first ever zero-emission polar research station. Since we last posted on this website, a lot of world-class science has been undertaken at the station. We’ve put together a quick summary of some of the major research projects that have taken place at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica and its vicinity during the last few seasons.