FEATURE
THE MONACO
BLUE INITIATIVE
The Athens of the North Monaco Blue Initiative comes to Edinburgh As told by Professor David Munro, Former Director of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society
On April 8-9, 2018 the 9th Monaco Blue Initiative conference was held in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Why MBI should select Edinburgh is explained by Professor David Munro, who is the former Director of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society
T
he reason why delegates gathered in Edinburgh to attend the 2018 Monaco Blue Initiative conference can be traced back to a chance encounter during the last week of July 1898 when two ships coincidentally set anchor side-by-side in the port of Tromsø in northern Norway. The first ship to arrive was the Princess Alice II, the research vessel of the ‘sailor prince’ HSH Prince Albert I of Monaco, who was making his first voyage northwards into Arctic waters to undertake oceanographical research. The second ship, owned by the thread-making magnate Andrew Coats from Paisley in Scotland, was the private yacht Blencathra, heading southwards after a sporting voyage to Novaya Zemlaya. On board this ship was the Scottish naturalist, oceanographer and polar explorer William Speirs Bruce who had been offered the opportunity to undertake air and sea observations on his third voyage into polar waters. Bruce could not believe his good fortune when the Prince invited him to join his northern cruise to Svalbard. This, as they say, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but not only that, it was the beginning of a fruitful scientific collaboration that was to last the rest of their lives. They made several subsequent visits to Svalbard together and the Prince supported Bruce’s 1902-04 Scottish National Antarctic Expedition by supplying scientific instruments to assist with oceanographical studies in the South Atlantic. Attracted to Edinburgh as a student in 1887 by the opportunity to study at the marine laboratory on the Firth of Forth and to work on the scientific data brought back to Edinburgh by the Challenger Expedition (1872-75), Bruce was eventually to establish his Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory at Surgeons’ Hall in Edinburgh, a facility that was officially opened by Prince Albert I in January 1907.
A collaborative relationship
Fast forward to 2002-04 and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society found itself taking the lead in rolling out a centenary programme celebrating William Bruce’s scientific expedition to Antarctica. It seemed appropriate to re-establish the strong link that had existed a century earlier between Monaco and Edinburgh and Crown Prince Albert accepted the invitation to be a royal patron of the centenary. Later, as Sovereign Prince of Monaco, Prince Albert II invited Professor David Munro to join the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the newly established Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. It was in this position that Professor Munro was able to assist in identifying world class organisations to engage with. One of these was the School of GeoScience at the University of Edinburgh, a research establishment with a strong track record in the field of marine science. A close relationship between the Foundation and the University of Edinburgh was to develop following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in 2015 and a decision was made in 2017 to hold the next Monaco Blue Initiative in Edinburgh. A passion for studying and protecting the oceans had brought Prince Albert I and William Speirs Bruce together in 1898. That same passion has been reignited a century on in a new collaborative relationship between Monaco and Edinburgh.
26 | May 2018 - International Aquafeed