Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Built in 1985, the base houses between 1,000 and 2,000 British military personnel and
varying numbers of aircraft (including the advanced Euro-fighter Typhoon) and helicopters
designed for search and rescue. The Falkland Islands community, around 3,000 strong, con-
tinues to be a British overseas territory and has enjoyed much improved living conditions
thanks to a fishing-licensing regime around the Islands. Oil exploration is ongoing.
The struggle to secure agreement over a minerals regime represented the most significant
challenge to the ATS and its ability to maintain consensus. Talk of a possible agreement
mobilized opposing parties such as Greenpeace and Malaysia to complain both inside and
outside the UN General Assembly that Antarctica was on the verge of being 'carved up'
by the wealthy states and their corporations. China and India's membership of the ATS in
the early 1980s did little to dispel these fears, especially as it was recognized that the ATS
was a secretive organization that held closed meetings. The public rejection of CRAMRA
by Australia and France, two claimant states, was a pivotal moment, and led to the speedy
negotiation of the Protocol on Environmental Protection in 1991.
Claimant states get rebuffed as well. In 2002, at a meeting of the Commission for the Con-
servation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, Australia proposed that the Patagonian
Toothfish, a species targeted by illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing around
Southern Ocean islands such as the Australian territories of Heard and MacDonald, be
placed on Appendix II of the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora (CITES). Notwithstanding support from New Zealand and non-governmental or-
ganizations, the proposal was strongly opposed by other members. The Australian propos-
ition was withdrawn, and in the end, another claimant state, Chile, was able to propose that
the conservation measures used by CCAMLR to address IUU fishing should prevail. The
hostility towards CITES can be explained with reference to the fact that some members of
the ATS fear growing encroachment into the Antarctic by global legal instruments to the
point where the authority of the ATS might be compromised in the longer term.
Non-claimants such as the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, and, more recently, Ch-
ina and India increasingly matter. Take China as an example. Initially eager to exclude Ch-
ina from the Antarctic programme of the IGY, the United States and others have had to re-
cognize China's expanding presence in the Antarctic. Starting in the 1970s, Chinese parties
contacted Australian and New Zealand experts for advice on creating an Antarctic scientif-
ic programme. In 1981, the Chinese National Antarctic Expedition Committee was estab-
lished, and China joined the ATS in 1983. Within two years, the country was a consultative
party (compared to other signatories who have had to and scientific understandingblould
be wait for many years to be confirmed as an ATCP) and established its first base at King
