Antarctic peace may be endangered

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33858, 2 June 1975, Page 1

Antarctic peace may be endangered

(From

CEDRIC MENTIPLAY)

WELLINGTON, June 1. The preservation of peace and co-operation among nations in the Antarctic may well be endangered because of the feverish world search for hitherto untapped energy sources.

This will be a major concern at the consultative meeting of the Antarctic Treaty signatories which will begin at Oslo next week. The conference, which will start on June 9, will last nearly a fortnight. Among the countries represented by delegates will be New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom. Russia, the United States, Japan, Belgium, Norway, France and South American countries, including Argentina and Chile. A first priority of the conference will be the fixing of a pattern for energy and other exploration of the vast frozen area which is possibly the only unknown territory left in the world. Many indications have been given of coal and oil deposits, inaccessible but closer because of modem technology. Delicate talks This will make the coming .conference an unusually deli- ' cate one. Since the Antarctic I Treaty was signed in 1959, .nations have worked in 1 Antarctica in a spirit of amity and co-operation. Scientists and explorers of the United States, the Soviet Union, New Zealand and Australia have shared facilities and spent terms at each other’s forward stations — and have planned to continue to do so. The energy crisis could break the spirit of the treaty. The first breath of commercialism could send the nations scurrying to protect their borders — and national borders in Antarctica are still largely a matter of conjecture and occupation. Although New Zealand has been in physical occupation of Scott Base for a decade, this does not automatically secure the vast area of mountain, peninsula, island

and sea known as the Ross Dependency. Until now, the two-year meetings of the consultative committee have been entirely devoted to peaceful coexistence and co-operation. The last meeting was in Wellington in 1972, so next week’s gathering is overdue. New Zealand’s delegation will include the Deputy High Commissioner in London (Mr D. McLean), a senior officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mr C. Craw), and the Superintendent of the Antarctic Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (Mr R. B. Tnompson). Study group Immediate crises are not expected. It is believed that an international study group will be set up, and that priorities will be established for energy exploration, source verification, and for eventual development — but scientific groups of all the Antarctic nations fear the commitment of commercial enterprise, and particularly the arrival of the giant supranational companies. After all, the territories of the Ross Dependency, handed to New Zealand by Britain in 1923, t comprise between 160,000 and 175,000 square miles of land and 130,000 square miles of permanent ice shelf — a large area to

retain against modem pressures, particularly if it contains a wealth of energy resources.