Giacomo Bove Station-Antarctica (WAP ITA-Ø2)

Soon the formal designation of the new Historic Site (HSMs) under the Antarctic Treaty.
Another small step towards the creation of a new visitor center and a new plaque in Trieste (Italy), in view of the completion of the IPSSIA project (the institution of the first Antarctic Italian Historical Site).

This is briefly, the story of the first independent Italian expedition in Antarctica dated 1976, and of the man who made it possible. The Polishs, who have a nearby science base, still call the site as Italy Valley.

December 1975: 15 Italians did challenge the climatic conditions, economic difficulties and political inertia to build a Base in the coldest and inhospitable site of the planet, with temperatures that in the “hot” months reach 19 degrees below zero and during the long winter of the sub-southern hemisphere go down to -50°C. The Expedition arrives before the accession of Italy to the Antarctic Treaty, before the PNRA, the National Research Program at the South Pole.

Renato Cepparo officially donate the newly founded Base to the Italian state. But the answer that comes from the cabinet secretary of the the Foreign Affairs holder, Minister Arnaldo Forlani, is as formal and cold as the wind of Italia Valley on a January day!

“While I express the greatest appreciation of the On. Minister of Foreign Affairs, I would like to inform you that the Italian Government intends to give the Base to the Argentine Government”. The reason “Guarantees for Future Research and Exploration Programs in Antarctica or Other Italian Scientific Missions”, did sound incomprehensible for Cepparo and that decision was difficult to accept. It was paradoxical –did comment Roberto Cepparo– Forlani proved himself to be a very small man, because to solve the problem with the Argentinians gave them the Base. Two years later, Flavio Barbiero, deputy leader of the company in 1975-76, returns to Italia Valley and makes the dramatic discovery: “Only the perimeter wall supporting the building remained in place. Everything else has disappeared in nothing” wrote Renato Cepparo in his memories.

Actually, a young reasearchr Prof. PHD Julius Fabbri (Pic aside) is strongly working to ensure that the status of Antarctic Heritage could be recognized to the site where Renato Cepparo built the first Italian research station dedicated to the explorer Giacomo Bove

Stanislaw Miranski SP3BGD, send us a picture taken in April 1998. Here is the remains of Italian Antarctic Station “Giacomo Bove” – Italia Valley on King George island.