******************************************************** POLITICAL ******************************************************** ************** GOVERNMENT ************** __________ QUESTION: Does Antarctica have any organized system of government? Does it have elected representatives? ANSWER from Guy Guthridge on December 20, 1994 Unlike all the world's other land areas, Antarctica is neither a sovereign state nor a territory owned by a nation. While seven nations have asserted territorial claims to portions of Antarctica, other nations do not recognize these claims. The nations interested in Antarctica--the seven claimants and 35 others--have signed the Antarctic Treaty which sets the rules for activities in Antarctica. These rules include an agreement to disagree on the issue of territorial claims. That is, a claimant nation does not have to give up its claim, and a nonclaimant nation does not have to recognize the claims. One result is that you can enter any part of Antarctica without showing your passport. The text of the Antarctic Treaty is online elsewhere in this network. It is not a long document, and anyone interested in this subject would find the treaty worthwhile reading. The single most important result of the Antarctic Treaty is that it has reserved Antarctica for peaceful purposes only. The Antarctic Treaty has been in force since 1961. Representatives of the treaty nations meet every year to administer Antarctic issues such as environmental protection and sharing of research results. The representatives to these meetings are appointed by their home governments. U.S. representatives usually come from the Department of State, the National Science Foundation, and a few other federal agencies. In addition, nongovernment people can be appointed as advisers to the government representatives. Representatives to the Antarctic Treaty meetings are therefore not elected directly by the people whom they represent. But they are appointed by government officials who report to elected officials: the Congress and the President. ****** FLAG ****** __________ QUESTION: In the last broadcast I noticed a flag with blue and white stars. What does this represent? ANSWER from Elizabeth Felton: I am not sure what the flag represents. ******************************* INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ******************************* __________ QUESTION: Do you ever work on experiments and/or make contacts with the stations of other countries on Antarctica? For example, do you share information about your findings with other countries during the research? ANSWER from Guy Guthridge on February 3, 1995 International cooperation is prominent in Antarctica. Article III of the Antarctic Treaty promotes cooperation by requiring that information regarding plans for scientific programs be exchanged, that scientific personnel be exchanged among expeditions and stations, and that scientific observations and results from Antarctica be exchanged and made freely available. Every nation working in Antarctica is a member of the Antarctic Treaty, and virtually every one of them cooperates with one or more other nations in both science and operational support of science. The United States has worked with scientists of most of the treaty nations, including Germany. Because Antarctica is so large, much of the research that is done could not be completed without international cooperation. An example is radio-echo sounding of the depth of the ice sheet and of its bedrock topography. This work took more than a decade and involved the United States, Britain, Denmark, Russia, France, and several others. Most scientists publish their findings in the open scientific literature, such as Science Magazine or Nature or the more specialized journals. All these publications are circulated internationally. International science also is promoted by the nongovernmental Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, of the International Council of Scientific Unions, which holds biennial meetings in the various treaty nations. ************** LAND CLAIMS ************** __________ QUESTION: What countries hold land claims there, and how do these land claims effect research efforts? ANSWER from Deane Rink Argentina and Chile claim a pie-shaped wedge of the continent centered around the Antarctic Peninsula. New Zealand claims something she calls the Ross Dependency. All these claims have been suspended during the term of the Antarctic Treaty, and they probably do not affect the science that happens on the continent. This is because the larger countries -- USA, the former Soviet Union, Great Britain -- all have agreed to make no claims themselves and to hold the smaller countries' claims in abeyance until an undetermined future time. But a public relations war does rage on occasion. Both Argentina and Chile teach their schoolchildren that their wedge is a part of the mother country, and have even gone to the extent of bringing pregnant women onto the ice so as to claim the birth of the first "native" Antarcticans. *********************** FUTURE SETTLEMENTS *********************** __________ QUESTION: Do you think that people will be able to live in Antarctica in the future? ANSWER from Chris Hanson on January 17, 1995: People "could" live in Antarctica today, really. (And we do!) The reason that we don't is twofold. The first reason is that the Antarctic Treaty preserves Antarctica for science and research purposes, and disallows other uses. So, you'd have to be participating in a recognized scientific expedition or experiment to get permission to live here. The second reason is that you'd have to have a reason to be here and a way to live here. You can't easily grow food here, and there are few consistent sources of energy available. So you'd have to ship in fuel and either food or hydroponic chemicals to grow food indoors. In order to pay for all this, you'd have to be making a worthwhile living down here, and frankly there's not much to make money off of in Antarctica. While there are believed to be great mineral and petroleum deposits here, the Treaty prohibits mining or drilling for oil. About the only profession I can picture that could make a living here without exploiting the land would be a writer or artist of some kind. I know several photographers who work here in McMurdo so that they can have the opportunity to come and photograph the amazing sights in Antarctica. Whether you could make enough at something like photography to support yourself here is another question. Should the Treaty ever be ended, everything could change. You might see vast oil-drilling and mining operations like those in Alaska and Canada. Towns would spring up (like they have in Alaska) even in the harshest places to support the industry. I don't really think that'd be a good thing. I think Antarctica is like a 'spare' piece of the planet, untouched. We can go and look at it and see what the world is like without humans and the pollution we have caused. And I think it's best to keep it that way.