Antarctic convention may be settled

Press, 9 May 1980, Page 12

Antarctic convention may be settled

By

STUART McMILLAN

An agreement to regulate the harvesting of the living resources of the Antarctic has been near for a couple of years. A draft convention has been prepared byAntarctic Treaty nations and high hopes are held that the special meeting, now being held in Canberra, will result in a final draft Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. Because so much work has been done already, the Canberra meeting to some extent will set the seal on that work. But it also looks forward to a new convention on the mineral resources of the Antarctic.

Two problems have been holding up the signing of the convention. One concerns

the status of the Kerguelen and Crozet Islands; the other concerns the participation of the European Economic Community in the meetings of the Antarctic Treatv nations.

The Kerguelen and Crozet Islands are French. That claim is not disputed. However, the convention needs to cover the islands if it is to make sense.

In the past, the Soviet Union has over-fished the seas around the islands.

The solution to the problem lies in recognising. French rights in the islands and yet making fishing subject to the over-all intentions of the convention.

The second source of trouble has lain in Soviet objections to the participation of. the E.E.C.

If is a mark of the E.E.C.’s attempts to have itself taken seriously as a political, as well as a trading, organisation that the E.E.C. has sought participation in Antarctic Treaty decisions. The Soviet Union has an ideological conflict over the question. Never a lover of the E.E.C., it accords it recognition only grudgingly. In a typical piece of complicated E.E.C. voting arithmetic, the E.E.C. has taken over the voting powers of the member countries which are also Antarctic Treaty signatories and said that it should also have an extra vote.

Sufficient confidence is apparently around for Australia to call the conference. Until the issue is brought up at the conference, no-one

can be absolutely sure how the Soviet Union will react. It would be reasonable to suppose that the Soviet Union might swallow its ideological pride, but not its arithmetic.

On the other hand, a very cautious view might be to look at the two problems and identify a common aspect in both: the Soviet Union.

One line of argument is that the Soviet Union, being technologically less advanced in fields such as Antarctic mining or off-shore drilling, has been stalling for time on a mineral resources convention until its technology catches up with that of the United States and West Germany. The longer the convention on the living resources is delayed, the longer before attention turns to the mineral resources.

which would clear the way for some mining. Yet that may prove to be too dismal a view. Apparently the views of every participating country are close enough for success to be expected. At a late date an argument has come from environmental groups. The first clause of the draft agreement goes some distance towards establishing the criteria under which krill or fish may be taken. The major criterion is that no species should be taken beyond a maximum sustainable yield.

The environmental groups, which were in favour of this wording earlier, are now arguing that the point should be made that other species which depend on the species being fished should not be

depleted unduly. In the case of krill, fot instance, it might be possible to fish for krill so that krill would stay in a condition of maximum sustainable yield, but whales and other creatures which live on krill might die off because of the competition for food.

The environmental grouns are arguing that this first clause ought to be reworded to take account of that possibility. In fact the point is covered in the second clause of the convention.

Probably a number of countries, including NewZealand, would not object to a rewording, but they might if other countries argued that the wording should remain. Nobody wants to sacrifice the chance to settle the convention.