 Well, this is Edgar Gold calling and speaking to you from sunny Brisbane, Australia, where I'm based at the moment, wherever you are in the world. It's probably colder, but it's nice and warm here, over 30 degrees today. I was a former professor of law at Delhousie for over 20 years, and I'm also, for my sins, one of the founders of the marine environmental law program. And in fact, I started in the Delhousie marine sector much earlier, because I actually was a student there in 69, 72, after a sea-going career sailing for 16 years, including several years as master on all types of ships, including tankers. My colleague and friend, former student David Vanditswark, used to introduce me as a reform polluter when inviting me to lectures in his environmental law class. Well, my task today is a little bit different from what other people will be talking about, because I was really asked to provide you with a bit of retrospective of how the marine environmental law program, which is now reaching its 40th year, actually developed. And we have to go back a little bit further, because when I was still a student at Delhousie, then-President Henry Hicks and our former dean, Ronald McDonald, decided that Delhousie law school had to move a little bit further into the oceans area. And they hired our mutual and wonderful friend, the late Douglas Johnston, to come in and help with that, particularly on the international law of the sea area. I was his research assistant after graduating from law school and admission to the bar, and before going to the United Kingdom in 1973 for my PhD. Whilst I was in the UK, however, Douglas Johnston was sent over and seduced me to return back to the law faculty and to strengthen the marine environmental law area, especially in the maritime law field, and my wife and I returned in 1975. At that stage, the university had also established the Delhousie Ocean Steering Committee with a very high-level membership from university management, which really formalized the university status as an ocean center of excellence. And there were early days. The courses in the program were done by Douglas Johnston, by Hugh Kindred, and myself. The library was greatly strengthened because one of the real supporters was Chris Victor, the law librarian at that time, and, of course, in 1975, the Marine Environmental Law Program, or MELP, as it became known, started. But we had, of course, at that stage, all the established a critical match of oceans people at Delhousie. Firstly, the School for Resource Environmental Studies, Thres, which had been brought into being through Arthur Hansen, who still is involved with MELP today. The Canadian Marine Transportation Center, the CMTC, and the Business School with Graham Day today, Sir Graham Day, still involved. The Center for Marine Geology, the Center for Foreign Policy Studies, which was very interested in the oceans area, and then, of course, the scientific community in oceanography, marine biology, and the Bedford Institute also. And this was followed by the International Oceans Institute, IOI, when the late Elizabeth Mann-Borghese established the Canadian branch of the IOI in Canada. And interesting, she also brought the Ocean Year Book with her, which is now produced by MELP personnel, and it's in its 27th year. The Marine Affairs Program, AAP, was the last one. There were also very strong links with the Maritime Warfare School of the Department of Defense, the Canadian Coast Guard and the Canadian Coast Guard College in Sydney, the Canadian Maritime Law Association for the Maritime Lawyers, many of us were members, and the Company of Master Mariners of Canada, of which I'm a member. So MELP steadily strengthened with graduate students, with many new teachers who came along. I mentioned already David Vandenswerg, Maura McConnell, Aldo Kirkop, Norman Lettlick, Ted McDormand, the late Peter Underwood, Philip Saunders, Dawn Russell, and we had others who were closely linked with us, Mary Brooks in the business school, Cindy Lampson, Brian Fleming, still around, Gil Winum, still around, Hugh Williamson, John the late John Gratwick, Susan Ralston, Judy Swan, Evelyn Meltzer, and Carl Mitchell, who gave us a very important link with Cedar, and Oliver Nelson, who at that particular time was in the United Nations Office on the Law of the Sea, and of course is now a judge in the Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. There were quite a few others. Throughout those years, we had excellent support from presidents at the University of Henry Hicks, later on Andy Mackay, and also vice-presidents Guy McClain, and later Bob Fournier. And of course, the law deans, very important, Ron McDonald, Bill Charlton, and Innis Christie, but financially it moved very slowly and we really had no decent research funds at all. In 1978, Douglas Johnson, Arthur Hansen Graham Day and myself made a very comprehensive oceans research applications to SHERC, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We were turned down, but we came back and applied for an even more ambitious project the next day and we were successful. This was the Dalhousie Ocean Studies Program, DOSP, the OSP, worth originally one million, but eventually with an additional SHERC and Dal funding closer to two million, a very large amount, especially in 1979. However, over its life, DOSP attracted several other research projects that continued when DOSP eventually became the International Institute for Transportation and Ocean Policy Studies, ITOPS, and which would eventually be morphed into the Oceans Institute of Canada. Now, DOSP, as we all know, was an incredibly successful program as it more than filled the social science legal gap in Dalhousie Ocean Studies and research area that had been steadily strengthened. It provided also the complementary research component to the MELP Teaching Program. At this stage, Dalhousie had become recognized as one of the leading ocean studies institutes in the world, attracting researchers, students, and conferences. For example, the prestigious Law of the Sea Institute Conference was held at Dalhousie in 1982. They asked to come. We didn't invite them. DOSP and other Dalhousie projects were quickly establishing an international oceans network, especially in Southeast Asia, through the establishment of the Southeast Asian Program of Ocean Law and Policy in Thailand, as well as in Singapore, China, Malaysia, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines, as well as in the wider Caribbean. And contacts basically everywhere in the world where oceans knowledge was being furthered. Dalhousie's experts, often known as DOSP's, were everywhere. The written output was significant. Many of us often with CEDA or other international funding assisted governments and other institutions and often participated in high-level international meetings such as the United Nations Conference in the Law of the Sea. For example, I was at all the sessions. I was involved in the development of the World Maritime University, WMU in Sweden, and the International Maritime Organization's International Maritime Law Institute, EMLE in Malta. I served as a Canadian member of the Board of Governors for these institutions and taught there for many years, as did a number of other Melk colleagues and some still do today. The great strength of Melk and its associated groupings has always been the persons involved. All of the elderly DOSP's went on to distinguish Korea many in the oceans-related areas and many are still directly or indirectly involved with Melk, MAP, or other related institutions. I took early retirement from the law school in order to practice law full-time in 1994 and eventually resettled in Australia where I'm living now very happy, my former home. So I'm less able to say much about the further significant development in the past two decades. Although I have kept an eye on things as this whole evolution was not only one of my babies by the significant Korean initiative for me too. Some of the original DOSPs are now senior professors. Melk has been finally institutionalized which should have happened long before it did, it certainly should have. There are at least two new generations of students and researchers since I left and the teaching program is as innovative and up-to-date and varied as always. Anyway, I'm very honored to be able to speak to you all about something that I'm extremely proud about. As I'm heading for my 81st birthday I hope that I'm forgiven if I have forgotten to mention someone or something. Let me wish you the very best of luck. Good luck to Melk as it heads for 50th anniversary. I'll probably not be able to speak to you then but who knows. All the very best to you all. Thank you.