Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Meetings have acted very responsibly to protect the vulnerable environment
in the region. A good example is the prohibition of mining for 50 years. When
the issue was discussed in the 1970s, the parties decided to ban mining until
an international treaty on controlling and minimizing the environmental
impacts of mining could be agreed.
This treaty containing very strict regulations on environmental protection
was tentatively agreed in 1988 - the Convention on the Regulation of
Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (CRAMRA); however, this proved
insuffi cient for France and Australia who refused to ratify the Convention
and thus prevented it from ever coming into effect. Fortunately, the stalemate
was quickly resolved by the 1991 Madrid Protocol on Environmental
Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, which came into force in 1998. The
Madrid Protocol,
inter alia
, banned mining altogether for 50 years (until
2048), set strict regulations for environmental impact assessments of all
human activities in the area and established a system to create dedicated
protected areas for conservation.
The greatest challenges for environmental protection in Antarctica today are
climate change, increasing tourism and the commercial exploitation of the
unique biota, ('bioprospecting', or biological prospecting) under the pretext of
scientifi c work.
The ATS system has been proposed as the model for the environmental
protection of the other polar area, the Arctic. This was proposed by the
ATS system is based on freezing contentious sovereignty claims, some of
which overlap. It is an international area that has been dedicated to science
and the protection of its unique environment. This state of affairs is
completely different from the Arctic region, where eight states (Russia,
Canada, the USA and fi ve Nordic countries) enjoy full sovereignty to all
the land areas and sovereign rights over their exclusive economic zones
and continental shelves over a great part of the Arctic Ocean. The two
polar areas are therefore polar opposites in terms of political and legal
As a result of climate change, the Arctic Ocean's ice cover is rapidly
melting. Sooner or later, the Arctic Ocean will no longer be ice-covered,
at least during the summer months. A new sea will gradually be revealed
where once there was a permanent thick sea-ice. The central part of the
Arctic Ocean is beyond 200 nautical miles from the nearest coast and there-
fore constitutes the high seas, where any country in the world and their
vessels can enjoy freedom of navigation as well as fi shing rights. International
law of the sea grants extensive navigation rights for various purposes (tour-
ism, transport of goods and oil, for example) in the area. In addition,
foreign ships have the right of innocent passage, even on territorial waters
near the coast.
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