A COLD HARD LOOK

Forest and Bird, Volume 20, Issue 3, 1 August 1989, Page 18

A COLD HARD LOOK

By

Alan Hemmings

Pibreats to the environment of Antarctica

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society has long argued that the Government should be working towards a World Park for Antarctica. That possibility seems a step closer to reality with the recent refusal of Australia and France to sign the Minerals Convention. Alan Hemmings argues for why there should be no mining on or near the frozen continent. uring the 1980s we have seen Antarctica emerge from the very fringes of global awareness, to become an area of major international concern. Quite apart from activities on the continent itself, the discovery of the ozone "hole" over Antarctica in 1985, drove home the fact that Antarctica was, after all, a part of the global environment and subject to the effects of human activity elsewhere. At the same time, our technological capabilities have increased to a point where some now entertain the greedy prospect of commercially exploiting Antarctica’s likely minerals. Of course, exploitation prospects are not confined to minerals activities. Exploitation of the marine life of the Antarctic goes back a long way, with seals and whales, and, more recently, fish and krill taken in an almost totally unregulated manner. Antarctic tourism is a more recent development, but as tourism is now the biggest industry in the world, there will be increasing interest in this activity. Both present severe problems for the environment and conservation, but of an altogether more tractable nature than those associated with minerals exploitation. Ironically then, we now find ourselves studying the results of our carelessness elsewhere on the planet, in the stratosphere over Antarctica, whilst preparing to behave in the same old way down below, on the continent itself. Despite all that thirty years of scientific research has told us about the fragility of Antarctica, and our experience of environmental degradation elsewhere in the world, we still seem in danger of approaching this last continent on the eve of the 21st century with the mentality of a Pizzaro.

Record to Date

At a time when we are being asked to accept minerals exploitation in Antarctica, it is instructive to look at our record with regard to the environment there to date. Considering the enormous size of the place, the comparatively small number of people who have been there, the purported concern with protecting the environment and the supposedly benign nature of science, it

comes as something of an unpleasant surprise to find that we really have made quite a mess in many places. Firstly, despite the fact that the Antarctic covers some 17 million square kilometres, a mere 2 percent of this is ice-free in the summer, forming biological "oases" around the edge of the continent. These vital ice-free areas, where the teeming wildlife and rather sparse vegetation of Antarctica is found, are, of course, also the places best suited for human activities, and herein lies a fundamental conflict. Antarctic expeditions and their bases have invariably interfered with the local wildlife. The earliest expedition reports are full of accounts of molestation by man and dogs and although most individuals are now more sensitive to animals, the increased scale of our activities has certainly made things worse. The station I spent two and a half years at, Signy, was established in 1947 and very quickly caused the locally nesting giant petrels to desert, despite the best efforts of the few personnel. The mere presence of dogs and human activity across the bay from the breeding area was sufficient disturbance. _ Over the past five years in particular, the increased number, size and complexity of modern stations has dramatically increased human impacts in Antarctica. On King George Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula, . there are now year-round stations operated by different nations, giving that one small island probably the highest density of scientific stations anywhere in the world! Clearly, the scientific merits of such duplication are limited. Those stations exist primarily to’stake a claim in Antarctic decision making, and King George Island has been picked because it is comparatively easy to get to. The history of

recent human activity on King George Island exemplifies many of the environmental impacts seen elsewhere in Antarctica. Following establishment of the US Palmer station at Anvers Island in the mid-sixties, the Soviets built Bellingshausen on the Fildes Peninsula of King George Island. The Chileans, who, like the British and Argentines, claim the area, felt obliged to build a station right alongside the Russian station. Both stations were built in a biologically rich area then being designated as a Specially Protected Area. Construction and base activities,

such as pollution of the area's lakes, caused that designation to be reduced and then lost. None of the Antarctic Treaty countries moved to uphold the theoretically binding Agreed Measures of 1964 which set up Specially Protected Areas. The Chileans built an airstrip and a second station behind the first, allowing Hercules flights from Punta Arenas and constructed a Hotel-cum-Conference Centre and housing for a small colony of Chilean families.

Chinese Ran Amok

In the 1984/85 summer, during the establishment of their Great Wall station, Chinese personnel ran amok, smashing birds’ eggs, breaking skuas’ wings, placing broken glass in nests and so on. This was carefully documented by a West German scientific group, whose own equipment was also interfered with. This occurred just before the Chinese applied to join the Antarctic Treaty, yet their application was accepted without murmur of protest at these actions, which constituted a clear breach of the theoretically binding Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora. Similarly, the construction of an airstrip by France at its Dumont d’Urville station has proceeded without any serious protest from other Antarctic Treaty states. Indeed, a recent

press release from the French Embassy in Wellington actually claimed their construction was Carried out "with the full approval of the Antarctic Treaty partners’, although Russell Marshall has since told me in a letter that this "is not correct". Although the d’Urville airstrip is the best known, others appear to be in the pipeline. The British, after the most cursory of environmental evaluations, are hoping to build a hard strip at their Rothera Station; the United States has looked at the feasibility of a strip at Marble Point, some 50 miles from McMurdo, and Australian commercial groups are looking at strips that would allow them to fly tourists in. The prospect of increased air traffic to and from Antarctica, together with the expectations that minerals exploitation and tourism generate, has led to a number of cities marketing themselves as "Antarctic Gateways". Here in New Zealand Christchurch hopes to build on its long association with the Antarctic in this way and Hobart (Tasmania), Punta Arenas (Chile), Ushvaia (Argentina) and Mount Pleasant (Falkland Islands) are being touted in a similar manner. The merchandising of Antarctica has begun. On paper at least, the Antarctic Treaty and subsequent agreements (constituting the Antarctic Treaty System) may look to provide rules to protect the wildlife and plants of Antarctica. In practice however these "rules", which include agreements covering seals and marine living resources (but not whales) in addition to the Agreed Measures, and a great number of Recommendations, are left to individual states to interpret. Each nation operating in Antarctica is its own judge when it comes to interpretation of these agreements, indeed they are drafted to allow this. This is a fundamental flaw in the current system. Whenever anyone points to an apparently clear branch of any element of the environmental agreements (and this is always left to a non-governmental organisation) there is always an escape clause, which legitimises whatever has been done. If one were to accept the official line, it would appear that there has not been a breach of any environmental provision in the history of the Treaty. Obviously this is nonsense.

Wastes Pernicious Problem

One of the most pernicious problems throughout Antarctica has been the fate of the wastes produced at the Antarctic stations and by field parties elsewhere. Wastes, ranging from sewage, through chemicals, discarded food, batteries, packing cases and defunct machinery and vehicles require sensitive disposal. In the vast majority of instances, there is no reason why the wastes cannot be totally removed from Antarctica. The reality is that much, probably most, of it is still disposed of in the Antarctic, often in a manner contrary to that agreed by the Antarctic Treaty parties. At their biannual meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1987, the Antarctic Treaty Parties agreed on Recommendation XIV-2, concerning Environmental Impact Assessment. Before an activity in Antarctica, states were to carry out an Initial Environmental Evaluation to determine whether the activity would have a significant impact. If it would, the state is to carry out a Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation, on the basis of which it then decides whether to go ahead with the activity. As has been the

case throughout the Antarctic Treaty System, each state is left to be its own judge on these matters. Nonetheless, even this requirement seems to have been flouted by the Chinese in the process of building their second station in Prydze Bay during the 1988/89 summer. When they set out on their expedition they announced that they were looking for a site in that region, but since they had still not actually selected it they could hardly have carried out any prior environmental evaluation. Naturally, they built their base and everyone looked the other way. In the May issue of Forest & Bird | looked at the animals likely to be affected by the pollution from the Argentine ship Bahia Paraiso and the Peruvian ship Humboldt. Since those ships came to grief, we have seen the Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound in the Gulf of Alaska, an ugly forewarning of what can happen in Antarctica too if oil exploitation occurs there. If that spill, on the doorstep of the most technically sophisticated nation, can cause such widespread devasta-

tion, and prove so far beyond the available resources, it is not difficult to appreciate the scale of the disaster should it occur in an area as remote as Antarctica. Yet despite these recent experiences, New Zealand still does not have even a contingency plan for dealing with any sort of oil spill in the Ross Sea, its immediate area of interest. The major international convention dealing with oil pollution at sea is the 1973 MARPOL Convention (there are no provisions under the Antarctic Treaty System dealing with oil pollution). New Zealand has signed MARPOL but not yet ratified it. According to the Ministry of External Relations and Trade, the Ministry of Transport is working to ensure ratification by the end of 1990. Yet, even this convention is of limited use in Antarctic waters. Many of the parties to the Antarctic Treaty are not signatories (there is no obligation to accede to MARPOL before entry to the Antarctic Treaty System). Further, under MARPOL!'s Article 3, the vast majority of ships likely to operate in Antarctic waters are effec-

tively placed outside the convention. This article reads: "The present Convention shall not apply to any warship, naval auxiliary or any other ship owned or operated by a state and used, for the time being, only on government non-commercial service" [emphasis added]. Since most ships operating in the Antarctic are "owned or operated by a State"’ this clause critically weakens the convention in Antarctica. If this is the situation when the only legitimate activity is science, the prospects seem altogether bleaker for Antarctica if we allow minerals exploitation to go ahead. Since 1982, the states involved in the Antarctic Treaty have been negotiating a regime to allow minerals exploitation in Antarctica, and New Zealand has played a leading part in this effort through the chairmanship of Chris Beeby of the Ministry of External Relations and Trade (MERT). The resulting convention, the Convention for the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (CRAMRA), has been roundly condemned by just about

every environmental organisation in the world, most of the household names in the international environment movement (Sir Peter Scott, Jacques Cousteau, David Bellamy, etc) and a substantial part of the scientific community familiar with the continent and its seas. In April, these voices were joined by the French government and in May by the Australians, both of whom announced that they would not ratify the convention because it would not secure adequate protection for the Antarctic environment.

Scramble for Resources

Essentially, and notwithstanding MERT statements to the contrary, CRAMRA is a minerals exploitation document, and far from regulating an inevitable "scramble" for resources, it actually causes that scramble. To understand why this is the case, we need to consider the political circumstances of the continent. Antarctica is in a curious limbo, politically. Seven countries (Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom) claim sectors of the continent, and three of these (Argentina, Chile and UK)) overlap. Nobody else recognises these claims, and importantly, this includes both the United

States and the Soviet Union. To complicate this further, the United States and the Soviet Union reserve the right to make their own Claims. A way out of this impasse was found in the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which, to use the usual expression, "froze’’ all claims and activities which might enhance or reduce any such claims, for the duration of the Treaty. This was achieved by substantially limiting military activity in Antarctica, by free access to all parts of the continent at all times, and by the development of science as the one legitimate activity in the area. By comparison with other parts of the world, this regime has been fairly successful. It has, however, left unresolved the underlying problem — sovereignty. And this takes us back to the minerals convention. Exploration and exploitation of minerals resources in Antarctica, whether it occurred now, in ten years time or 30 years time, would be enormously expensive. No oil company, or hard rock mining corporation, is going to invest the billions of dollars perhaps

over many years required to find those minerals unless they can be sure that they are going to reap the financial rewards. The last thing Shell will want is to spend eight years and $20 billion finding a commercial oil reserve only to find Exxon, Phillips Petroleum or Petrobras plugging in alongside them just when it looks lucrative. The oil companies want secure and preclusive property rights to a particular area before they will consider exploitation. So, the negotiation of a regime which allows exactly this allotment of secure property rights facilitates the very thing it purports to control — minerals exploitation — with the inevitable pollution and degradation of the Antarctic environment.

Convention Effectively Scuppered

Nonetheless, the Convention was largely completed in Wellington in June 1988 (important protocols, too hard for resolution then have still to be sorted out) and is open for signing until November 1989. In order for the Convention to come into force, all seven countries laying claims to parts of Antarctica, plus the United States and the Soviet Union, must sign. Thus, the rejection of CRAMRA by

France and Australia effectively scuppers the Convention as currently envisaged. These countries have proposed some sort of World Park or Antarctic Treaty Park status instead, the option advocated for so long by Green-

peace, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition and a host of others concerned for the preservation of the Antarctic. Australia has proposed that the Antarctic Treaty partners proceed to negotiate an Antarctic Conservation Convention. Ironically, and as we have been often reminded by MERT over the past few years, New Zealand itself advocated World Park status for Antarctica back in 1975. According to Chris Beeby, that option was not greeted with much interest at the time and the parties to the Antarctic Treaty decided instead to develop a regime which would allow exploitation. A week may be a long time in politics; 14 years is an eternity in international politics. The facts are that we are now in a different world to the oil-shocked mid-seventies, the many and various environmental threats to our planet are finally dawning on us and the "green" voter has become a potent force. New Zealand now finds itself backing the wrong horse. When even the French are concerned that the Antarctic environment is at risk, surely New Zealand, of all countries, needs to reassess its position. For those of us concerned to secure the

future of the Antarctic as a place of unsullied and exquisite beauty, the next few months will be critical. We have to persuade the Government that it cannot proceed with the minerals convention and that it should instead be advocating the total protection of the continent through an Antarctic Treaty Park. With a commitment to compliance with stringent environmental standards, (and this probably requires the establishment of an international Antarctic environmental protection agency of some sort) this could allow the continued use of the Antarctic as a natural laboratory for the study of both specifically Antarctic topics and globally important issues such as climatic change and pollution. If we want this to happen, we have now to persuade our Government not only to join France and Australia in rejecting the minerals convention, but to actively promote a comprehensive environmental regime for the continent as a matter of some urgency. y& Alan Hemmings has spent the past ten years working on Antarctic, Sub-antarctic and Southern Ocean biology. His zoological research has been principally concerned with skuas, in Antarctica and, more recently, on the Chatham Islands from the Zoology Department of the University of Auckland. He currently works in the Antarctic Policy Group in Environmental Science at the University, where he is involved in Antarctic environmental policy development, including an examination of Antarctic environmental policy for the Ministry for the Environment. Previously, he worked for the British Antarctic Survey for four years, including two-and-a-half years in Antarctica, and was commander of the British biological station at Signy Island. Last year Forest and Bird provided financial assistance for his attendance at the Fifth SCAR Symposium on Antarctic Biology, where he delivered a paper on human impacts on skuas.