Antarctica and all of its emperor penguins, leopard seals, blue whales, and towering mountains have been set aside for protection under international agreements. For the past decade or so, oil drilling and mining have been banned from Antarctica in order to safeguard its natural beauty; this protection will last 40 more years. The pact stresses conservation in place of growth and development. Pesticides and dogs are included in the wide range of prohibitions, as they present threats to the the indigenous wildlife.
The continent is protected through the Environmental Protection Protocol to the Antarctica Treaty. This agreement has been set by the nations of the world to keep Antarctica free of commercialism and industrial development. The leading 26 nations that had scientific interest in the area approved the treaty in 1991. These nations include the United States, Russia, India, China, Brazil, Argentina, Japan and most nations in Europe.
By delineating regulation, the treaty served to end more than fifteen years of lobbying by environmentalists and diplomatic discussions. In addition to prohibiting oil exploration and mining, the rules mandate that nations involved in the thirty-five scientific outposts remove all their waste and clean up their dumps. Further, tourist vessels and scientific stations are prohibited from discharging raw sewage into the waters surrounding Antarctica.
Explorers such as the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, the first to reach the South Pole in 1911, depended upon sled dogs for their transportation. However, the treaty makes dogs illegal since a few of the scientists’ pets have recently caused the death of penguins and other birds common to the area. In addition, pesticides, polystyrene components, and contaminated dirt cannot be transported to Antarctica.
The land of the Arctic is covered by ice that is on average 1 mile in thickness and only supports the most basic plant life, like moss and grass by shorelines. Seventy per cent of the planet’s fresh water comprises Antarctica’s ice. You can find a rich ecosystem containing plenty of marine like and animals around Antarctica.
Antarctica is a very fragile ecosystem. Growth takes place very slowly because of the consistency of the sub zero temperatures. It can take years for the area to recover from any disturbances. Footprints, for example, can take as much as 10 years to disappear.
Signed in 1959, the original Antarctic Treaty banned nuclear testing and military activity in the area. It also asserted that Antarctica was to be owned by no nations. The rules for research were also established at this time. A nation occupies nearly every inch of the area even though no one actually owns Antarctica.
In the early 80s, after scientist discovered deposits of zinc, coal, manganese, uranium, copper, gold, iron and offshore oil, environmental groups started to push for conservation laws. There were companies that tried to get approved to do Antarctic drilling to fight the 1970s energy crisis. As technology advances and the price of fuels begin to rise, interests in the deposits of the Arctic will probably augment.
The twenty-six nations that formed the agreement will independently enforce the regulations. However, if the citizens of a particular country are in violation of the agreement, and that country does not address the infraction, the remaining countries will pressure the government of that nation to deal with it. The story of Antarctica is very encouraging for the environmentalist movement.
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