Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
national scientific investigation. The scientific station offered a new model of coloniza-
tion - whereas claimant states created research stations as part of their national strategies,
other non-claimants such as Japan were able to point to IGY scientific priorities and sug-
gest, more plausibly perhaps, that they were acting in the interests of 'mankind'. Rhetoric-
ally speaking, 'scientific authority' was replacing 'environmental authority', and claimant
states needed to accept not only trespassing but also encampment.
While the IGY generated extraordinary amounts of new data on the Antarctic, including on
the upper atmosphere, it created compelling precedents. Science could be a powerful mech-
anism for international cooperation, while scientists relished having unfettered access to the
continent and surrounding ocean. Scientific bases, while information-processing colonies,
also provided a visible manifestation of claimant and non-claimant interest in the Antarctic.
New stations sprang up all over the continent and surrounding islands. Britain, for example,
established a new base at Halley Bay, and the three counter-claimants managed to collabor-
ate with one another in the Antarctic Peninsula region. Australia had to accept that Soviet
bases in the Australian Antarctic Territory could not be wished away. Finally, the IGY
offered a possible scientific-diplomatic model for the future governance of the Antarctic.
Could the parties be persuaded to continue to cooperate with one another even if the sov-
ereignty of the Antarctic remained unsettled? What would happen after the IGY - would
there be a new 'scramble for the Antarctic'?
These questions were pressed in newspapers and magazines around the world. In the midst
of the IGY and beyond, the United States hosted a series of meetings with the and scientific
understanding
So if the path towards the Antarctic Treaty was decisively shaped by the experiences of the
IGY, it was not a straightforward one. Britain and its Commonwealth allies were still eager
for the Soviet Union to be excluded from any future political arrangement. Argentina and
Chile were deeply troubled by the precedent set by the IGY in allowing unfettered access
to their territories. Norway was more preoccupied with the Arctic, and uncertain about its
long-term commitment, but reluctant to lose face. New Zealand, mindful of the substantial
US presence in its Ross Dependency, even contemplated renouncing its territorial claim.
Any agreement was likely to involve signing up to some kind of framework guaranteeing
unrestricted access and recognition that others might, at some later date, press a claim to
the Antarctic. This was a bitter pill to swallow for the gang of seven.
While science was perfectly capable of being put to work in ways that exceeded the selfless
pursuit of knowledge creation and exchange, polar science was also colonizing the Antarc-
tic, and generating new expectations, conventions, procedures, and rules. The IGY brought
