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New Year’s falls right in the middle of the austral summer season for the team at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station. The passing from one year to the next serves as a divide between the first and second halves of the season.

It’s the end of the year, and already the first teams of scientists for the 2019-2020 season have come and gone.

The two cooks whose job it is to feed the hungry BELARE team - Christine and Guillaume - offered a glimpse into Christmas traditions and preparations for Christmas Eve Dinner at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

Already several weeks into the new season, the old garage on the north side of the station is in the process of being torn down while the anchor points for its replacement are being installed.

Scientists who are concerned about the carbon footprint that doing research in Antarctica can leave are certainly happy that the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica - the world’s first polar research station designed and built to run entirely on renewable energy - goes a long way in reducing the carbon footprint their research leaves. However, when scientists need to conduct research in the field for extended periods of time, they often need to take diesel-powered generators to run their scientific equipment.

On the morning of Saturday 7 December 2019, scientists from different parts of the world joined the operational team of the International Polar Foundation working at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station to express their support for Climate Express, the Climate Coalition, and many other NGOs for the "United for Climate - Human Chain" awareness-raising campaign by symbolically stretching the human chain they plan to make in Brussels on Sunday 8 December all the way to Antarctica.

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.