A New Threat For Antarctica
Antarctica is the coldest and most desolate of all the regions of the planet. In the past, people decided that Antarctica could be shared. But many countries are now looking at the Antarctica as a possible future source of natural resources and raw materials as their own resources start to run dry.
The aims of conservation and preservation also slowly being replaced with new aims of resource exploitation.International confrontations due to the exploitation of the natural resource may gradually replace the existing cooperation of international scientific studies.
At the main U.S. Antarctic base, scientists and officials talk of decades of tranquil research and sharing among nations. The challenges of the environment are said to bring people closer together, along with their common interest for the science that they undertake. antarctic cruise
The work of Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd and his vision for the Antarctic has lead to a park being dedicated to him outside the National Science Foundation McMurdo building headquarters. Byrd has led five Antarctic expeditions and was the first to fly over the South Pole. Admiral Byrd believed that the Antarctic could be a regional of unprecedented cooperation between different nations for the goal of international research. His sentiments are indeed noble, but are they realistic now that they world is becoming starved of energy and minerals?
As a region of mineral resources the full potential of the Antarctic is not yet known, but there is a strong interest growing. Politics is now playing a greater role in the situation of the Antarctic. Beneath thousands of feet of ice covering 98 percent of the land, along the mountain ranges that cut the continent and offshore in the icy seas, are believed to be vast deposits of minerals and oil. trips to antarctica
Areas in and around Antarctica geologically resemble parts of other continents where oil, gas and minerals exist in abundance. Exploratory offshore core drilling by the U.S has already provided data that supports the belief that hydrocarbon deposits do exist. Deposits of coal have already been confirmed with other minerals and metals such as titanium, uranium, gold, copper, lead, cobalt, nickel and chromium.
Exploitation of the Antarctic has always been uneconomical due to the environmental conditions but this has now changed. Because natural resources have become more expensive and technology has improved both governments and businesses are now considering it economically viable and environmentalists are now worried.
Environmental groups worldwide are also concerned because Antarctica is one of the only remaining regions of the Earth that is unpolluted and untouched. Groups including the Sierra Club and the International Institute for Environment and Development in London can see the inevitable conflict between commercial and environmental interests.
They point out that there must be some exploration and studies to see what resources are in Antarctica and to assess the environmental impact of exploiting them. However they are worried the results of any studies will actually encourage development. Oil development causes the most concern because of fears about spills. A lot of Antarctica’s animal life is found near the coast and is likely to be affected. Oil is known to not degrade or break up as easily in colder climates than in warmer ones, so a spill would be more damaging there than anywhere else.
The majority of activities in the region are controlled under the 1959 treaty that designated the Antarctic as a scientific preserve. One of the things that the twelve nations who signed the treaty have managed to achieve is to keep the Antarctic free from militarization and nuclear weapon testing.All of the land claims by different nations that overlap have been side stepped by the treaty.
