THE MONACO EXPLORATIONS MISSION IN THE INDIAN OCEAN  

The Monaco Explorations mission in the western Indian Ocean, scheduled for October and November 2022, is part of the commitment of the Principality and its Sovereign to safeguard and sustainably manage the Ocean. This is the first element of the “Monaco Explorations” project, approved in June 2021 as part of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030. Aboard the S.A. Agulhas II, 8 research projects were implemented, 20 nationalities represented and 170 people on board in total. Scientists, artists, divers and documentarians, communicators and mediators have combined their skills to carry out a multidisciplinary study on the route Mauritius, Reunion, Aldabra and the Seychelles, Saya de Malha, St-Brandon and again Mauritius. The focal point of the study, the submerged atoll of Saya de Malha, a vast underwater seagrass bed of 40,000 km² qualified as an "invisible island", is the subject of numerous challenges in terms of biodiversity and sustainable management of natural resources.

• Design: Marie-Christine LEMAYEUR and Bernard ALUNNI
• Printing process: Offset
• Size of the stamp: 52 x 31 mm horizontal
• Quantity of issue: 40 000 stamps
• Sheet of 10 stamps with illuminations