Who Owns Antarctica? Does It Matter?

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Antarctica is 5.5 million square miles of frozen, inhospitable, uninhabited wasteland. The land mass is covered with a sheet of ice more than a mile deep. It’s technically owned by no one and is not open to mineral or oil exploration—at least not yet. For six months of the year, the sun doesn’t even rise above the horizon. In sum, it’s the highest, driest, windiest, coldest continent on the face of the Earth. So who’s in charge in Antarctica? And why does it matter?

History

From the time James Cook left Plymouth, England in 1772 with secret orders from the British Admiralty to find the Southern Continent, people have been fascinated with Antarctica. Cook was fated never to see the continent itself, although he reached the Antarctic Circle in 1773 and 1774. Hunters continued to venture south, eventually landing on the sub-antarctic islands where they hunted seals for skins and oil.  It was one of these sealing parties that first sighted the actual Antarctic continent in 1820. The first real expeditions to the South Pole didn’t take place until the end of the 19th century and England’s National Antarctic Expedition was first organized in 1900. Sir Ernest Shackleton is perhaps the most famous of the early intrepid polar explorers, while Admiral Robert E. Byrd made the most significant American impact upon Antarctic exploration in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Antarctic Treaty

As exploration, sealing, and whaling hit their peaks during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, nations began to recognize the potential importance of this frozen waste and lay territorial claims to parts of Antarctica. By the 1930s international rivalry saw Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Norway all putting their names to slices of the pie, slices that sometimes overlapped. The U.S. government, while supporting Antarctic exploration, did not make any claims or recognize those of other nations.

True scientific and systematic exploration of Antarctica began in earnest during the International Geophysical Year (IGY), July 1st 1957 to December 31st 1958. During this time 35 scientific stations were established on the continent itself and another 15 on sub-Antarctic islands by 12 different nations. With unprecedented success in international cooperation during this time, the 12 nations agreed to continue their research and sent representatives to Washington D.C. in 1959 to draft the Antarctic Treaty. This agreement, initially signed by the previously mentioned seven nations as well as the U.S., Belgium, Japan, South Africa, and the U.S.S.R, dedicated the entire continent to peaceful scientific exploration and suspended all territorial claims. In 1991, 24 nations approved an addendum banning oil and mineral exploration in Antarctica for at least 50 years.

So What?

So no one nation can lay claim to Antarctica, and nothing can live there year-round except some lichen, fungi, and a few super-tough insects. The Antarctic waters and sub-Antarctic islands are a different matter, being home to an enormous wildlife population. Massive quantities of fish, squid, and krill inhabit Antarctic waters, as well as six species of seal, millions of  penguins, seabirds such as gulls, terns, cormorants, albatrosses, and petrels, and eight species of whales. This is one reason the area is important; for instance the waters around Antarctica have been declared an international whale sanctuary after whales were nearly hunted to extinction there in the early 1900s.

The Antarctic has also proved crucial in humanity’s understanding of the phenomenon of global climate change. The British Antarctic Survey discovered the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica in 1985, revealing the damage done to the atmosphere by man-made chemicals. In some areas sea ice is decreasing, with negative impact on wildlife. Additionally, 70 percent of the Earth’s fresh water is tied up in the area’s five million miles of ice.

The Antarctic region is one of the only relatively untouched areas left on the planet, and is one of the only places the nations of the world have agreed to leave that way, at least for now. Since no one has yet developed technology that would allow boring through miles of ice to reach the valuable resources likely underneath, it is for now a moot point. But as technology catches up with humankind’s insatiable need for fuel sources, it remains to be seen if the Antarctic Treaty will hold firm.