Antarctic Treaty

“ Each of the Contracting Parties undertakes to exert appropriate efforts, consistent with the Charter of the United Nations, to the end that no one engages in any activity in Antarctica contrary to the principles or purposes of the present Treaty. ”

“ Antarctica shall be used for peaceful purposes only. There shall be prohibited, inter alia, any measure of a military nature, such as the establishment of military bases and fortifications, the carrying out of military manoeuvres, as well as the testing of any type of weapon. 2. The present Treaty shall not prevent the use of military personnel or equipment for scientific research or for any other peaceful purpose. ”

“ Governments exchanging information under paragraph 5 of Article VII of the Antarctic Treaty may at the same time transmit the information relating to the implementation of these Agreed Measures.
Article XIII 1. After the receipt by the Government designated in Recommendation I-XIV (5) of notification of approval by all Governments whose representatives are entitled to participate in meetings provided for under Article IX of the Antarctic Treaty, these Agreed Measures shall become effective for those Governments. ”

“ Public Law 95-541, the US Antarctic Conservation Act of 1978, as amended in 1996, requires expeditions from the US to Antarctica to notify, in advance, the Office of Oceans and Polar Affairs, Room 5801, Department of State, Washington, DC 20520, which reports such plans to other nations as required by the Antarctic Treaty. For more information, contact Permit Office, Office of Polar Programs, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia 22230; telephone: Economy Antarctica
Economy - overview: Fishing off the coast and tourism, both based abroad, account for the limited economic activity. ”

“ Antarctic Treaty regulating access to the Antarctic Treaty area, to
all areas between 60 and 90 degrees of latitude South, have to be
complied with (see "Legal System") (2004)
Airports:
there are no developed public access airports or landing
facilities; 30 stations, operated by 16 national governments party
to the Antarctic Treaty, have restricted aircraft landing facilities
for either helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft; commercial
enterprises operate two additional aircraft landing facilities;
helicopter pads are available at 27 stations ”

“ Although further change in the management status of Antarctica is inevitable, it is essential that such change not jeopardize the achievements of the Treaty System in the areas of peace. science. conservation, and environment. Antarctica has been an agreed zone of peace for nearly 30 years, free of all military activities, nuclear tests, and radioactive wastes. This is a foundation on which humanity must build. ”

“ Antarctica is an enormous continent where claims to sovereignty are in dispute and where there are no agreed legal bases for issuing licence8. leasing or selling mineral rights, or receiving royalty payments. These delicate questions have now been raised and will not lie silent until they nave been answered within an internationally agreed framework. Until these matters are resolved. and protection of the Antarctic environment is assured, it seems unlikely that any nation or group of nations will be able to invest securely in developing the continent's mineral resource. ”

“ Shackleton hanging round the doors of rich men! Scott writing begging letters for months together! Is the country not ashamed?
Modern civilized States should make up their minds to the endowment of research, which includes exploration; and as all States benefit alike by the scientific side of it there is plenty of scope for international arrangement, especially in a region where the mere grabbing of territory is meaningless, and no Foreign Office can trace the frontier between King Edward's Plateau and King Haakon's. The Antarctic continent is still mostly unexplored ”

“ The work of the Challenger, Valdivia, Gauss and Scotia in the South Atlantic and South Indian Oceans has given us a clue to the possible connections between Africa, South America and Antarctica, and now it is of great interest and importance to get more soundings to the south of Australia and New Zealand, to show more exactly what the conformation of the floor of the ocean is in those longitudes. That is one of the most important investigations for future Antarctic exploring ships to carry out. ”

“ The Continent itself appears to have been sighted for the first time in the year 1820, but no human being actually set foot on it until 1895. The Belgian expedition under de Gerlache was the first to experience the Antarctic winter, spending the year 1898 drifting helplessly, frozen in the pack-ice, to the southward of America. In the following year a British expedition under Borchgrevinck, wintering at Cape Adare, passed a year upon the Antarctic mainland. ”

“ Should there be sufficient funds, it would be well to have a second ship for the express purpose of carrying an extra supply of stores and a house, rather than lumber up the oceanographical ship with all this material. If the lie of the land be found to be as expected, a serious attempt would be made to cross the Antarctic Continent and to emerge somewhere along the coast of the Ross Sea, the journey being made more or less along the meridian of Greenwich on the Atlantic side, and continuing on about the 180th meridian on the Pacific side. ”

“ Those who are interested in the proposed expedition in Australia are right in believing that a thorough knowledge of Antarctic conditions would be of the greatest service to a continent whose climate must be largely determined by those conditions ; doubtless also the whaling industry might gain much by the information which the proposed expedition would obtain. Arctic exploration has in these respects been of the greatest: service to the northern hemisphere. ”

“ The successes of Scott and Shackleton still further stimulated interest in the Antarctic problem, and in 1910 and 1911 Great Britain, Norway, Germany, Australia, and Japan sent expeditions into the field; the United States unfortunately, as in the past, being unrepresented. Four of these expeditions—the Japanese, Australian, Norwegian, and British—selected the Ross Sea region south of New Zealand and Australia7 for their work; while the German expedition selected the Weddell Sea region southeast of Cape Horn, the most promising of all points of attack upon the Antarctic continent. ”

“ As regards land work in the Antarctic Regions, this can be undertaken more satisfactorily after we have obtained a more definite idea of the confines of the Great Southern Ocean around Antarctica. At present there is too much hazy conjecture, and we find what one believes to be part of Antarctica itself another declares to be an island. But the land work has begun, and to the keen landsman there is no reason why it should not be going ahead. ”

“ Even before our conception of the earth's form had taken definite shape, voyages to the South began. It is true that not many of the explorers of those distant times reached what we now understand by the Antarctic regions, but still the intention and the possibility were there, and justify the name of Antarctic exploration. The motive force of these undertakings was -- as has so often been the case -- the hope of gain. Rulers greedy of power saw in their mind's eye an increase of their possessions. Men thirsting for gold dreamed of an unsuspected wealth of the alluring metal. ”

“ Sir James Ross, in his most successful South Pole Expedition, during the years 1839-43, sailed over some of this land, and confirmed the rest. The Antarctic, as well as the Arctic honors he secured for England, by turning a corner of the land, and sailing far southward, along an impenetrable icy barrier, to the latitude of seventy-eight degrees, nine minutes. It is an elevated continent, with many lofty ranges. ”

“ There in the White South, beyond the Antarctic Convergence that runs across three oceans to mark the physical boundary of Antarctica, is the Bulgarian base St. Kliment Ohridski on Livingston Island in the Antarctic Peninsula region of Western Antarctica.
People still know little about that continent. It is the highest, driest and coldest place on earth, a land of penguins, seals, glaciers and icebergs, stretching over a vast area of 14 million square kilometres around the South Pole. A continent where few people have had the chance to step on and get touched by its beauty. ”

“ The people of New Zealand would have welcomed us, I think, whatever had been the result of our efforts, for since the early days of the Discovery expedition their keen interest in Antarctic exploration has never faltered, and their attitude towards us was always that of warm personal friendship. ”

“ Before sunset we were to sever all ties with the outer world, but we all looked forward eagerly to our coming venture, for the glamour of the unknown was with us and the south was calling.
All day long the deck of our little vessel was thronged by sight-seers, who showed the greatest interest in everything connected with the ship and her equipment. There were many whose criticisms were frankly pessimistic as to our chances of weathering an Antarctic gale, for the Nimrod was deep in the water, but we, having confidence in the ship, were not disturbed by these criticisms. ”

“ That the Antarctic continent, if it exists—it may be an archipelago—is covered with a thick ice-sheet there can be no doubt; but that the character of the land differs from that of Greenland is evident from the table-shaped form of the icebergs, so different from the rugged masses met with in the Arctic seas. From the purely scientific -standpoint it would be of the highest interest to ascertain the nature of the fossil plants which exist in the Antarctic land, if, indeed, there are any. That Greenland, even in the tertiary age, had a climate like that of Southern Europe, has been demonstrated ”

“ The struggles, the disappointments, and the endurance of this small party of Britishers, hidden away for nearly two years in the fastnesses of the Polar ice, striving to carry out the ordained task and ignorant of the crises through which the world was passing, make a story which is unique in the history of Antarctic exploration. ”

“ The original Australian scheme contemplated a mere reconnoitring cruise around the Antarctic region. No doubt by this means some information would be obtained as to the movements of the ice and as to the prospects-of an Antarctic whale and seal fishery ; but the scientific results could not but be meagre. If the proposed expedition is to yield any information of scientific, and therefore of practical, value, it must be prepared to leave a party as far south as is safe for a whole year. ”

“ As they sailed to their winter quarters in an [Pg 302] easterly course, they passed the locality where the ships of the American expedition had reported a discovery of land forming part of the great Antarctic continent. A sharp lookout was kept for it, but no indications were seen, and, when the two ships sailed over the spot where the continent was supposed to exist, the conclusion was forced upon the leaders that the Americans had been misled, as they had themselves on more than one occasion, into regarding the combination of ice and cloud as land. ”