Antarctic protesters make point with ice

Press, 21 November 1987, Page 2

Antarctic protesters make point with ice

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

at Parliament

Three tonnes of ice were dumped by protesters outside an Auckland hotel yesterday where Antarctic Treaty delegates were concluding a two-week meeting on a minerals regime for the frozen continent

The protesters were from Greenpeace and were objecting to what they called “a secret meeting to agree on oil drilling and minerals extraction in the Antarctic.” The ice was delivered by a tip-truck to the roadway outside the White Heron Hotel and was festooned with banners instructing delegates to “Keep Off the Ice?’ Greenpeace protesters dressed as penguins and the ice was cordoned to reinforce the point that Antarctica should be preserved as a wilderness rather than exploited. The co-ordinator of the pending Greenpeace expedition to the Antarctic, Mr Peter Wilkinson, said the minerals regime

discussions were designed to carve up Antarctica.* Greenpeace would not rest until Antarctica had world park status, he said. It was an insult to public opinion for the delegates to sit behind closed doors and meet in secret to deliberate the fate of an area that belonged to the world. The Antarctic should be kept sacrosanct from any form of exploitation, Mr Wilkinson said. The Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mr Chris Beeby, chaired the Auckland meeting. He will now prepare and circulate to delegates a draft text for a minerals convention. Mr Beeby has been

urged by the convener Of : the Antarctic and South- J . era Ocean Coalition in , Wellington, Ms Cath Wai- ‘ lace, to publish this draft , text so non-Govemment

organisations could join in the debate on it She said mining in Antarctica looked more likely as a result of the two-week meeting in Auckland. The meeting had seen intense work on a legal and political framework to govern the issuing of minerals licences over Antarctica. As the talks were ending the United Nations sought to pre-empt any decision. On November 18 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolUtion that there be a moratorium on the development of a minerals regime until all countries could participate in discussions on it.