Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties’ engagement in wilderness protection at home and in Antarctica

Abstract

The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty has stipulated the protection of Antarctica’s wilderness values since it came into force in 1998. A review of 2800 documents from the website of the Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty indicates that the consideration of wilderness is a very small component in the discussions and decisions of the 29 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties between 1998 and 2014. Fourteen Parties have never or very rarely spoken or written about wilderness, yet at least three of them have wilderness legislations for their domestic territories. The existence or absence of domestic wilderness policies or wilderness areas in a Party’s home country cannot explain the degree of its engagement on the issue of Antarctica’s wilderness values. Instead, Parties’ engagement on the issue of Antarctica’s wilderness values can be seen as a subset of the larger pattern of their engagement within the Antarctic Treaty System in general and on Antarctic environmental matters in particular. For Parties that have engaged little on the issue, we postulate that wilderness is unlikely to be a priority. For Parties that have engaged on the issue, we postulate that they envision Antarctic wilderness within a strongly anthropocentric utilitarian framework, similar to that adopted domestically within the European Union, and in contrast with the more existential framework adopted domestically by the USA. We argue that an anthropocentric utilitarian framework, together with de facto zoning of the Antarctic Treaty area into infrastructure and protected zones and Every Man’s Land, cannot provide effective protection to Antarctica’s wilderness.

Keywords:

• Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty
• Environmental Impact Assessment
• Antarctic Specially Managed Areas
• Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties
• wilderness

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank 10th World Wilderness Congress and WRi for facilitating this collaboration. Thanks to the WDPA and Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty for maintaining their websites, providing extensive information that are available to the public. Profuse thanks to TT’s in-house technical assistance in managing 2500+ papers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty: Opened for signature 4 October 1991, 30 ILM 1455 (entered into force 14 January 1998).

² Ibid., Annex I, Article 3(1).

³ Ibid., Annex V, Article 3(1).

⁴ Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, Article 11.

⁵ See e.g. Bastmeijer, “Managing Human Activities”; Tin et al., “Pressures on Wilderness Values”; Tin and Hemmings, “Challenges in Protecting Wilderness”; and Summerson and Bishop, “Impact of Human Activities.”

⁶ See e.g. Bastmeijer and Roura, “Environmental Impact Assessment”; Bastmeijer and van Hengel, “Role of Protected Area Concept”; Roura and Tin, “Strategic Thinking Antarctic Wilderness”; Tin and Summerson, “Growing Human Footprint”; and Hughes et al., “Untouched Antarctica.”

⁷ Bastmeijer, “Managing Human Activites.”

⁸ Kormos, Handbook Wilderness Law and Policy. In this paper, we rely on Kormos’ Handbook as our primary source of information on domestic wilderness legislations worldwide. It was considered as the definitive guide on the subject when it was published in 2008. Assuming that, over time, there is a greater likelihood that new legislations are added and a smaller likelihood that old legislations are removed, our analysis can be considered as either an accurate or an under-estimate of the situation in 2014.

⁹ Kormos and Locke, “Introduction,” 23.

¹⁰ A comprehensive study of this topic would include historical and cultural contexts of the domestic wilderness legislations of more Treaty Parties, and also equally importantly, the historical and cultural contexts of Treaty Parties that do not have domestic wilderness legislations. This paper serves as a first contribution to this larger body of work.

¹¹ Cowley et al., “Integrating Cultural Resources” 29.

¹² Land and sea south of 60° latitude south.

¹³ ATCM Decision 2(2011), “Revised Rules of Procedure for the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (2011); Revised Rules of Procedure for the Committee for Environmental Protection (2011); Guidelines for the Submission, Translation and Distribution of Documents for the ATCM and the CEP.” All Decisions, Resolutions and Measures, WPs, IPs, BPs and ATCM and CEP meeting reports are available on the website of the Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty, www.ats.aq.

¹⁴ ATCM Decision 1(1995), “Recommendations Divided into Measures, Decisions and Resolutions.”

¹⁵ Each time a Party’s name appears in the authorship list of a paper, we add one count to the Party, regardless of whether it is a single or multi-author paper.

¹⁶ UK, “Wilderness and Aesthetic Values.”

¹⁷ New Zealand, “Towards Additional Protection.”

¹⁸ See e.g. CEP, Report CEP IV, para. 34; CEP, Report CEP VII, para. 64; New Zealand, Report Back on SEGF; “Review of Antarctic Protected Areas System.” CEP reports have been downloaded from www.cep.aq.

¹⁹ UK, Australia and France. “Antarctica’s Future Environmental Challenges.”

²⁰ CEP, Report CEP XI, Appendix 1; Report CEP XVII, Appendix 1.

²¹ See e.g. Australia, “Footprint”; UK, “Assessing Cumulative Environmental Impacts”; USA, “Historical Development of McMurdo Station.”

²² New Zealand, “Possible Guidance Material.”

²³ See e.g. New Zealand, “Understanding Footprint and Wilderness”; New Zealand and Netherlands, “Concepts for Wilderness Protection.”

²⁴ CEP, Report CEP XIII, paras. 228–247.

²⁵ CEP, Report CEP IV, paras. 32–34; Report CEP XVI, paras. 92–95; Report CEP VII, paras. 57–62.

²⁶ CEP, Report CEP VII, para. 64.

²⁷ CEP, Report CEP XVI, para. 166.

²⁸ CEP, Report CEP XIV, para. 177; Report CEP XVII, para. 177.

²⁹ See e.g. CEP, Report CEP XVI, para. 165; Report CEP XVII, para. 178.

³⁰ Report CEP XVII, para. 178.

³¹ See, e.g. Yuschenko, “Message from the President of Ukraine”; Støre, “Remarks by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway.”

³² Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty, Report Twenty-Seventh Meeting, para. 195; Report Twenty-Eighth Meeting, para. 164; Bastmeijer, Lamers and Harcha, “Permanent Land-Based Facilities.”

³³ Australia, “Protection of Intrinsic Values”; New Zealand, “’Land-Based’ Tourism”; Germany, “Admissibility of Land-Based Tourism under International Law.”

³⁴ UK, “Developing Strategic Vision.”

³⁵ UK, “Strategic Vision”; Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty, Report Thirty-Second Meeting, paras. 178–187.

³⁶ Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty, Report Thirty-Second Meeting, para. 181; Report Thirty-Fourth Meeting, para. 311.

³⁷ Netherlands, “Outstanding Questions”; Netherlands, “Increasing Diversity of Tourism and other Non-Governmental Activities.”

³⁸ Australia and Belgium. Report Intersessional Contact Group Development of a Multi-Year Strategic Work Plan; ATCM Decision 3(2014) Annex: “ATCM Multi-Year Strategic Work Plan.”

³⁹ ATCM Resolution 3(2011) “General Guidelines for Visitors to the Antarctic.”

⁴⁰ Annex V of the Protocol differentiates between three types of protected areas. ASPAs are set up to protect areas with outstanding values and entry is on permit only. ASMAs are set up in areas where different Parties engage in different types of activities and may come into conflict with each other. Permits are not required for entry. HSMs usually do not have special access requirements.

⁴¹ New Zealand and USA, “McMurdo Dry Valleys”, Section 2.

⁴² Ibid., Appendix E.

⁴³ Australia et al., “Larsemann Hills,” Section 6.1.

⁴⁴ USA, “Davis Valley”, Section 2; “Barwick and Balham Valleys”, Section 2; Chile and UK, “Byers Peninsula”, Section 2; Australia, “Scullin and Murray Monoliths”, Section 2.

⁴⁵ Hemmings and Kriwoken, “High level Antarctic EIA” considered CEEs submitted between 1989 and 2007 and noted that none has been rejected. More CEEs have been submitted after 2007 and acceptance rate has continued to be 100%.

⁴⁶ Germany, Neumayer, 79.

⁴⁷ USA, Surface Traverse Capabilities.

⁴⁸ China, Dome A, 112.

⁴⁹ For example, Finland’s Act on Wilderness Reserves sets aside wild lands in order that the Sámi people could continue their traditional subsistence use of the areas. Small-scale logging takes place in some parts of Finnish wilderness areas. Australia’s various wilderness legislations aim to protect the naturalness of wilderness, and provide little consideration for indigenous people and their traditional lifestyles. See Kormos, Handbook Wilderness Law and Policy.

⁵⁰ Landres et al., “Comparison Wilderness Laws.”

⁵¹ Shestakov and Kats, “Russian Federation”; Caouette, “Japan.”

⁵² Parks and Wildlife Service. “Tasmanian Wilderness.”

⁵³ Cessford and Dingwall, “Wilderness and Recreation”; Manning. “Using Information/Education in Wilderness Management.”

⁵⁴ Landres et al., Monitoring Wilderness Character.

⁵⁵ Freitag-Ronaldson et al., “Wilderness Quality Management”; Kajala, “Finland.”

⁵⁶ European Union, Guidelines on Wilderness, 10.

⁵⁷ IUCN, “Member’s database”. Governments of Consultative Parties that are IUCN members: Australia, Belgium, China, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA. Consultative Parties whose governments are not IUCN members but at least one of its government agencies is a member: Argentina, Bulgaria, Uruguay.

⁵⁸ Dudley, “Guidelines,” 14–6.

⁵⁹ IUCN and UNEP, World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). The WDPA is the most comprehensive global spatial data-set on marine and terrestrial protected areas available but is not exhaustive. It contains only information that has been provided by the relevant national agencies.

⁶⁰ Wilderness Act: Public Law 88–577 (16 U.S. C. 1131–1136). 88th Congress, Second Session September 3, 1964.

⁶¹ Cronon, “Trouble with Wilderness.”

⁶² Cole and Hammitt, “Wilderness Management Dilemmas”; Landres et al., Keeping It Wild, 18.

⁶³ Landres et al., Keeping It Wild, 7.

⁶⁴ Woods, “Federal Wilderness Preservation,” 138–40.

⁶⁵ Landres et al. Keeping It Wild, 6.

⁶⁶ Rolston, “Wilderness Idea Reaffirmed.”

⁶⁷ Conservation Act 1987, Public Act 1987 No 65, Date of Assent 31 March 1987; Reserves Act 1977, Public Act 1977 No 66, Date of Assent 23 December 1977; National Parks Act 1980, Public Act 1980 No 66, Date of Assent 17 December 1980; Somers, “New Zealand.”

⁶⁸ Department of Conservation, Visitor Strategy, 20–1.

⁶⁹ Molloy, “Wilderness in New Zealand.”

⁷⁰ Somers, “New Zealand,” 197; Wray, “Socio-Cultural Value”; Brooking, “Different from USA.”

⁷¹ Cessford, State of Wilderness, 103.

⁷² Molloy and Reedy, “Te Wahipounamu.”

⁷³ Cessford and Reedy, “Wilderness Status and Associated Management Issues,” 49.

⁷⁴ Ibid., 46–7.

⁷⁵ Cessford, State of Wilderness, 96.

⁷⁶ Machado, “Index of Naturalness.”

⁷⁷ PAN Parks Foundation, Last of the Wild, 6.

⁷⁸ Kajala, “Finland.”

⁷⁹ Kohl and Pekny, “Dürrenstein Wilderness Area.”

⁸⁰ Krenova and Kiener, “Europe’s Wild Heart.”

⁸¹ European Union, Guidelines on Wilderness.

⁸² Martin et al., “Wilderness Momentum.”

⁸³ Kun and Houdet, “The Economics of Wilderness.”

⁸⁴ Naeem, “Ecology.”

⁸⁵ See e.g. Kajala, “Finland”; Kohl and Pekny, “Dürrenstein Wilderness Area”; European Union, “Guidelines on Wilderness.”

⁸⁶ Dudeney and Walton, “Leadership.”

⁸⁷ Convey, Hughes and Tin, “Continental Governance.”

⁸⁸ Dudeney and Walton, “Leadership.”

⁸⁹ Ibid.

⁹⁰ Brady, “China’s Antarctic Interests,” 45.

⁹¹ Examples of CEEs, where consideration of wilderness values are absent: Czech Republic, Czech Scientific Station; Korea, Jang Bogo Station; Belarus, Belarusian Antarctic Research Station.

⁹² China, “Mount Harding,” Section 2.

⁹³ USA, Surface Traverse Capabilities, 6–12.

⁹⁴ UK, Halley, 49.

⁹⁵ India, New Indian Station at Larsemann Hills, Table 27; China, Dome A, Section 5.11; Chinese Research Station, Victoria Land, Section 5.4.6.

⁹⁶ Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, Article 3(1).

⁹⁷ China, “Mount Harding,” Section 2.

⁹⁸ Ibid.

⁹⁹ see, e.g. Yuschenko, “Message from the President of Ukraine”: “Antarctica is a unique wilderness reserve belonging to all of mankind. It is our duty to work together to study Antarctica and preserve its pristine nature for future generations”.; Støre, “Remarks by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway”: “The polar regions are the world’s largest wilderness areas. Their environmental value is immeasurable. Their natural riches are immense.”

¹⁰⁰ Australia, “Protection of Intrinsic Values”; New Zealand, “‘Land-Based’ Tourism.”

¹⁰¹ UK, “Wilderness and Aesthetic Values”, 2: “The following appears to be a reasonable working definition of wilderness: any part of the Antarctic in which neither permanent habitation nor any other permanent evidence of present or past human presence is visible.”; Norway, Troll, 72: “Wilderness is associated with the concept of no physical human presence”.

¹⁰² Australia, “Antarctic Protected Areas System,” Tables 1 and 2.

¹⁰³ Bastmeijer and Roura, “Environmental Impact Assessment,” Table 3b.

¹⁰⁴ Bastmeijer, “Protecting Polar Wilderness”; Tin and Hemmings, “Challenges in Protecting Wilderness.”

¹⁰⁵ Hemmings, “Environmental Management.”

¹⁰⁶ See also Elzinga, “Rallying Around a Flag.”

¹⁰⁷ Spiller, “Re-Imagining U.S. Antarctic Research.”

¹⁰⁸ See Brady, The Emerging Politics of Antarctica; O’Reilly, Tectonic History and Hemmings et al., Antarctic Security for excellent coverage of these issues from different perspectives.