The helicopter from Nice/Cote D'Azur International Airport flutters for seven magic minutes over the pebble beaches and skimming yachts of the Mediterranean. Then, ahead, Monaco, the pink city-state defined by harbors and high-rises, windows glittering like sequins in the setting sun. Funny, it doesn't look like one of the most environmentally concerned places on earth.

Yet, this is where saving the oceans is a primary cause; where the Oceanographic Museum & Aquarium (for more than 30 years headed by Jacques Cousteau) monitors life beneath the surface of the sea and works to renew and sustain it. One of the many projects underway is growing red coral to restock the decimated reefs of the world. Those who peer over the edge of their balconies marveling that they can see all the way to the ocean floor, can thank the fact that Monaco -- alone on the Mediterranean shore -- does not dump untreated sewage into the sea.

Monaco may be synonymous with conspicuous consumption; with princely elegance and international dalliance, yet from the moment the helicopter touches down, even ordinary hedonists benefit from battles won against natural erosion and manmade waste. To begin with, the heliport, the industrial park behind it, the stadium and even the Princess Grace Rose Garden are on land wrested from the sea. So is the celebrated Sporting Club where fireworks spew on summer nights; so is Loews Monte-Carlo, the Principality's largest hotel with doorstep on the most famous curve of the Grand Prix. Some of the fill came from excavations like the tunnel you pass through getting there; more from rock directly beneath the hotel when a 4-level garage was cut out.

Set like a pink jewel on the Riviera between Nice and the border of Italy, Monaco is Europe's smallest and richest secular state. The entire Principality (population 30,000) is half the size of New York's Central Park There the comparison with Manhattan ends. Monaco has no crime, no poverty, no unemployment, no pollution and no income tax. Despite astronomical land value, buildings are limited to 12 stories. Whatever is unbuilt is park or garden. Pines, broom trees and aromatic plants have been planted along the country's borders to create a regional forest, however modest its dimension. In neighborhoods where the nannies of rich, famous and royal infants push their prams, the Latin names for flowers in curbside patches are common knowledge.

On the same pinacle as the Royal Palace, rare endangered species of succulents are cultivated in the micro-climate of the Exotic Garden. Sun or swim at Larvetto Beach, and you are on the brink of an Underwater Reserve that protects sea flora and fauna. Fish farms float offshore. A soft-surface track along the seafront encourages jogging through an olive grove where the air is naturally sweet.

Since there is no dirty air, buildings sparkle. The 18th century cathedral where Prince Rainier III married American movie star Grace Kelly is naturally-white stone. The 12th century church of Ste. Devote looks fresh as a peach. The Belle Epoch hotels, Casino and opera house on the promontory of Monte-Carlo are as they were when Edward VII came to play.

At the turn of the same century, Prince Albert I, a sovereign in love with the sea; an oceanographer in prince's clothing, set about saving the depths. His yachts became research vessels, and he made 29 expeditions along the coasts of Europe and South America. From the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego he measured depths and collected sea plants and animals. At home he constructed beakwaters to enclose Monaco's 2500-year-old Port of Hercules, then built and funded with his own money the Museum of Oceanograhy.

The International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean he founded still meets in Monaco as does the European Oceanological Observatory created in 1990 by grandson Rainier III. Albert also sired the Museaum of Paleantology and the Oceanographic Institute in Paris and won a seat on the Academy of Sciences. His good friend and fellow oceanography maven was Carlos I of Portugal, the nation that hosted Expo '98 with the theme "The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future." Today's crown prince, who will someday be Albert II, attended the Rio conference to restate the mission of Monaco: "to inform and warn" on the environmental threat to the oceans. A graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts, he is better known as one of Europe's most eligible bachelors.

Romance begets tourism, yet, beyond the tourist eye, lies the marine laboratory of the International Atomic Energy Agency located in Monaco, and the multinational Ramoge Agreement to promote the ecological health of the entire Cote d'Azur, Marseilles to Livorno, is administered here. The blue-greening of Monaco is less well known even on the Riviera than the marvel of such a tiny country having its own philharmonic orchestra, opera company and ballet troupe -- all overseen by Princess Caroline. The Casino never closes.

Quietly and determinedly, Monaco is growing larger, not by aggression but by reclamation. By 2010, 40 percent of its total area will be new turf. Semi-floating structures will provide both a new breakwater and more habitat for marine life. Extension of the port includes a fixed sea wall to permit more yachts; larger cruise ships. All train tracks and the station will be underground creating more useable land.

Most people will be too busy having a good time to notice.

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