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What's in store for Antarctica
last update: Feb 04, 2010 11:44 AM
From a "The Morung Express" article: Antarctica is often referred to as humanity’s last unspoiled repository. Lately, Antarctica is attracting more and more attention and although it "belongs" to no one, one wonders how long this will remain so.
Antarctica was discovered in 1820 by a Russian navy expedition under the command of Faddei Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. Because of it hostile climate and distance nobody wanted to actually live there and now, it is legally “no one’s 221; property, i.e. no one country owns its territory and it is not divided into any zones or sectors.
In 1961, an Antarctic Treaty went into effect, stipulating the demilitarisation of Antarctica and its use for exclusively peaceful purposes which meant that the treaty’s signatories officially relinquished territorial claims to the continent’s land. In December 2009, the Treaty was renewed for another 50 years, but with resources of the south seas and the Antarctic continent itself growning more interesting to many countries, a number of experts believe that the Antarctic Treaty’s years in its present form are numbered.
Although various countries such as Russia are in favour of maintaining the status quo in Antarctica, there are other countries directly bordering the Antarctic region who might continue to pay lip service to the agreement; however, there are activists in Chile, Argentina and New Zealand that hold that their country has lawful rights to ownership of Antarctic territories and are working towards this goal.
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