Teodor Negoiţă

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Teodor Gheorghe Negoiţă (born on September 27, 1947 in Sascut town, Bacău County) is a polar region explorer. In 1995, became the first Romanian explorer who reached the North Pole. Nowadays, he runs the first permanent Romanian research and exploration station in Antarctica, the Law-Racovita Station, which he established in 2006.

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[edit] Biography

Teodor Gheorghe Negoiţă was born on September 27, 1947 in the Sascut town, located in the Bacău County. Because his parents were teachers, the young Teodor had the luck to have at home a library which contained a lot of old books on travel. Even at that age he was fascinated by the description of some expeditions in the most difficult regions of the globe.

Later on, he attended the classes of the Industrial Chemistry College of Iaşi, graduating as a chemistry engineer.

He also attends to the technical part of science, trying to bring new modifications to some big installations. After that he was transferred to Bucharest at a Design and Research institute.

[edit] Passion for speleological science

Teodor Negoita had a passion for ethnology and he was most interested in the equatorial forest, Amazon and New Guinea. In his free time, he studied in particular a group of pygmies from the Equatorial Africa. At that time he was corresponding with a Catholic institute from Paris which send him the documentation he needed, but at those times was impossible to do a field research.

He found refuge in a domain which he could improve in the his country: speleological science. He was 33 when he learned, on his own, the alpine speleology. His domain of major interest were the vertical caves, with a depth of 200-300 meters, which where less researched.

His passion for speleology evolved later on to the ice caves. He managed to get the best speleology equipment of that time, brought from Czechoslovakia. Teodor Negoita felt that he needed to develop more than a solitude passion, so he initiated a more consistent project. In 1987,he becomes the founder of the first Romanian Institute of Polar Research. The attempts of obtaining finances failed, only in 1990 managing to realize something definitely.

[edit] North Pole expeditions

Teodor Negoiţă organized many Romanian expeditions in the frozen areas around the North Pole: Greenland, Far North of Canada, Spitsbergen (Svalbard) archipelago. He created lots of teams in various domains, these being the first Romanian teams that acted over the borders in a varied structure: geographers, geologists, engineers, doctors, biologists, etc.

He went on his own in Greenland and Spitsbergen (Svalbard) archipelago, on his skis approximately 300 km through the frozen lands.

His passion for the expeditions in the Arctic environment determined him to give up a likely academic career. Since his first expedition, he established the contact with Danish, Norwegian, Canadian and Russian researches, with the intention that his Romanian research group not follow the research paths of other countries, but to make original research, that would distinguish the Romanian innovation.

In 1994, he established the Romanian Institute of Polar Research as a private institution, with the intention of gathering scientists from various domains with the passion for polar exploration. The research incomes are provided by sponsors and government and European money, through the research projects that the foundation attends to. From the year 1995 he founds and runs the Romanian future expeditions.

Teodor Negoiţă trained for a more than a year to make an expedition to the North Pole (on skies) during a Russian research expedition. This way he improve his physical condition, so that to be able to ski for hundreds of kilometers, to resist the cold and to pull a sled that weighs 50-100 kilograms. He would train eight hours a day by pulling up to two tires, to make an exact simulation of sled to the North Pole.

On April 21, 1995, the explorer Teodor Negoiţă became the first Romanian explorer to reach the North Pole on skis during the Russian expedition. Nowadays he is the only Romanian that ever reached Fram’s land.

[edit] South Pole expeditions

After the North Pole expedition he turned his attention to Antarctic land.

“Antarctica is the only harsh environment on the planet. Here we find the driest atmosphere on the planet, this provide high quality astronomical studies, atmospheres studies, research regarding climate changes, magnetism research. Over Antarctics lies the largest ozone hole, research regarding pollution can be made at this place, from here we can sample a lot of meteorites, find new minerals, some with special qualities that ca become source for new technology. Antarctic is also a “biological laboratory“, extremely interesting for wild life research.”[1]

At the same time Teodor Negoiţă became a doctor in chemistry, by asserting a PhD called: “Pollution control in Arctic and Antarctic areas.”

In December 2000, Romanian President Emil Constantinescu awarded PhD.Eng. Teodor Negoiţă with the Romanian Star Medal, degree of officer.

[edit] Founder of the first Romanian research station in Antarctica

Teodor Negoiţă’s step to build a Romanian exploration station in Antarctica started in 1997, when he began reveal research essays at the “Antarctic Treaty”, at which Romania became a member since 1971. Until then no Romanian scientist ever reveal essays sustained by real facts. Although appreciated by others countries, work of station was not appreciated by the Romanian Academy.

From 2000, Teodor Negoiţă has the honor of having the opening speech at the Antarctic Treaty organized at London, in front 43 countries. The goal of this meeting was to regulate the naval rules in Antarctic Seas, the main argues regarding the Romanian, USA and Great Britain essays. Negoiţă presented the study “Directions concerning maritime Antarctic transport and environment pollution”.

With the occasion of the annual meeting of the Antarctic Treaty , which took place in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 2005, an agreement was signed from which Australia gave to Romanian Antarctic Foundation, lead by Teodor Negoiţă, one of their research bases from the Antarctic east coast. The signing of this agreement took place in the presence of ambassadors of the two countries: Romania and Australia. So, to the Romanian explorer Teodor Negoiţă were recognized the efforts of sequel of the tradition began of Emil Racoviţă a century ago.

“After more than 100 years, I brought Racoviţă back in Antarctic regions. The greatest achievement of my career was when I took from the base from the Australians. I got so emotional, that I couldn’t even signed”[2]

Having the purpose to reopen the station from Antarctica, Teodor Negoiţă made his 13th expedition in the polar regions, spending two months and a half in the Antarctic continent, in an exploration team made of two women, researchers in biology and biochemistry domains, the first Romanian women in Antarctic. The purpose of the expedition was, besides taking control of the station, to get ground samples, sediments and micro-organisms from the frozen continent.

On January 13, 2006, took place the opening of the first permanent Romanian research and exploration station in Antarctica, the Law-Racovita Station. The Romanian Antarctic Research Base Law-Racovita was handed over to Romania by the Australian Antarctic Division.

The Romanian research base from Antarctic caries both the name of the first Australian researcher that explored the east of the Antarctic, Phillip Law, and the name of the first biologist that studied living in Antarctica, Emil Racovita. It was founded in 1989 by the Australian Government, nowadays the antipodes country holding other 3 research stations in the region.

“It is a first time in the Romanian Antarctic research, the country that signed the 1971 Antarctic Treaty which gives us the right to use the far south of Antarctica, in peaceful purposes. It is much easier for a country with a global position like Romania to reopened an older base than building a new one.” was said by the Romanian Polar Research Institute director, Teodor Negoiţă, at the opening of the station.[3]

As a result of using this station, the yearly travel and maintaining costs of a Romanian expedition are estimated to be around 20,000 dollars.

The station is established in Princess Elisabeth region, in the Larsemann hills in the East Antarctica at a close distance, 2 km from the Russian Federation and Chinese stations, resulting a close cooperation with the researchers of this countries, allowing experience exchange.

The research station is positioned in a rocky region, not an icy one. It offers numerous access possibilities on the Antarctic icecap both for walking and using endless track.

The Law–Racoviţă station houses the first Romanian research team since 2006, at the beginning of the southern region. Romanian research team intends to do bioprospecting, ecological and weather forecast, the measuring seismic and geomagnetic activity, gathering data regarding radio communication interference.

Romanian research station is build from anti-corrosive and thermo-isolating materials, it consists of a laboratory, a radio station, five bedrooms and a fuel depot.

[edit] Future plans

Of the 13 polar expeditions which he participated in, 8 were lead and organized by Teodor Negoiţă. Five of his Romanian companions lost their life during the first expedition, when strong winds caused the helicopter to crash.

Negoiţă express his desires to do research on the Larsemann hills, having the purpose of gathering samples from soil and lakes, to carry out medical tests, pollution studies and climate changes. He was also interested in gathering micro-organisms and meteorites samples from ice.

Dr. Negoiţă expressed his disappointment regarding the lack of founds for organizing these expedition. The total expedition cost for 3 researchers, to mobilise for 3 months on the Antarctic land, rise up to 25,000 euro.

“I started to cry on my one in the middle of the frozen Iceland – thinking of the luck of the Chinese and Russian researchers were having. From the point of view of the attention that we are given from the state, were are behind even Bulgarians. They get 300,000 dollars per each year from the Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs” said the Romanian researcher sadly.

Most of the European countries, including the former-socialist countries, Russia, Ukraine or Bulgaria, hold the research institutes under the patronage of the local Academy and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Romania doesn’t have any government institute in this domain, but a private institute, independent from the Government and the Academy, Romanian Institute of Polar Research, the personal is made up of 10 researchers.

The Romanian Academy gave as a reason not to fund an institute the small number of researchers. Negoiţă sustained that the members of Academy are misinformed, there are 20 researchers in Romania at the current time, of which ten are employees of Romanian Polar Research Institute.

[edit] Published papers

The explorer Teodor Negoiţă published over 28 scientific papers. To promote his activity he choose to use the belletristic style that the Romanian large public to became interested in this fascinated domain of actual science.

Among his books, we can mention:

  • “Science on ice .With Chinese people in Antarctica” (2005), written on the base of his journal keep up during the 130 days of the winter of 2002-2003, when Teodor Negoiţă participated of the 19th Chinese expedition in the extremely South Pole continent.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Cariere, 18 aprilie 2006 - Teodor Negoiţă: Visul unei nopţi polare - Să păşească pe pământ românesc la capătul lumii
  2. ^ Gândul, 12 august 2005 - Cercetătorul Teodor Negoiţă pleacă spre unica baza românească din Antarctica
  3. ^ Australia oferă României o bază de cercetare în Antarctica

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[edit] See also

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