Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6
Exploiting and protecting the Antarctic
For all the 14 Articles of the Antarctic Treaty, comparatively little attention was given to
resource management and environmental protection of the Antarctic. At only about 2,300
words long, it remains a remarkably brief legal document, which, as noted earlier, provided
a sufficiently flexible and resilient framework for future legal and political development.
Human impact on the Antarctic's terrestrial and marine ecosystems derives principally from
the exploitation of living natural resources such as seals, whales, fish, and krill. While the
Protocol on Environmental Protection, an additional legal instrument to the Antarctic Treaty
(signed in 1991, entered into force 1998), prohibits all forms of mineral exploitation, the
Antarctic bears witness to the capacity of humanity to exploit massively non-human
populations in ways that have proved anything but sustainable.
Resources have been extracted from the Antarctic since the 18th century. While there were
explorers eager to inquire, there were commercial operators eager to acquire. And, of
course, some were perfectly capable of doing both. As with the Arctic, exploitation began
with sealing, whaling, and fishing, culminating with biological prospecting involving
Antarctic living matter. During the sealing period, from the 1780s to the 1890s, over 1,000
ships journeyed to South Shetland Islands in order to hunt Fur Seals. During the whaling
era, processing plants were established in and around the Antarctic Peninsula and outlying
islands such as South Georgia. Whale fragments still litter the coastlines, and the relics of
whaling stations and oil storage tanks continue to slowly rust in the unforgiving
environment.
Sealing
Sealing was by far the most important economic activity in the Antarctic during the 18th
and 19th centuries, dwarfing the exploratory voyages of European and North American
sailors and scientists. Lured by the promise of profit, sealers from the United States, the
United Kingdom, France, Australia, South Africa, and Chile, descended onto the sub-
Antarctic islands and islands close to the Antarctic Peninsula, in the main for Fur Seal pelts.
Gangs of sealers were dispatched to particular beaches in the Antarctic and expected to live
in tents during the summer season. Ships would then continue to circle islands and
territories in the hunt for further commercial opportunities. The reports by the sealers
themselves reveal a brutal, short-term-minded industry motivated by rapacity. The killing of
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