Ice convention ‘closes a gap’

Press, 22 June 1989, Page 12

Ice convention ‘closes a gap’

By

NIGEL MALTHUS

The convention on mineral exploration in Antarctica closes a gap in the Antarctic Treaty, says Dr Peter Wilkniss, head of polar programmes for the American National Science Foundation.

Dr Wilkniss said he was surprised by the “very unexpected” opposition to C.R.A.M.R.A. — the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities — now being voiced by France and Australia.

• Both have said they will not ratify the convention, preferring instead a regime which prohibits minerals exploration. Their stand effectively vetoes C.R.A.M.R.A., since all seven countries with territorial claims in Antarctica have to agree to it before it comes into force. Both Australia and France - are territorial claimants. The others are New Zealand, Norway, Britain, Argentina, and Chile.

Dr Wilkniss said New Zealand and the United

States had taken the lead in negotiating C.R.A.M.R.A. in good faith. Because there were as yet no known mineral resources in Antarctica, he believed there would not be mining within 20 or even 50 years in any case.

“So the minerals regime was a pretty good framework. It had a lot of safeguards that were satisfactory, and a gap had been closed.” Dr Wilkniss could not say whether he would oppose the alternative proposal for Antarctica — that it be declared a World Park — because he had not seen a definition of what that would entail.

World park status would have to allow continued access for visitors and for scientific work. Antarctica was a unique laboratory,

essential for studies of the ozone hole and the relationship between the ice sheet and the atmosphere and their effect on world weather, he said. Dr Wilkniss attributed the “second thoughts” over C.R.A.M.R.A. to the upsurge in environmental concerns in the last year. Parties with environmental platforms had come to the fore in elections in Australia and Europe, and there had been the political fall-out from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the sinking of the Bahia Paraiso in the Antarctic. The argument over ratifying C.R.A.M.R.A. is expected to come to a head at a meeting of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Party in Paris in September.