21 - Whither Antarctica? Alternative strategies

Summary

I have had some connection with several Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings, but none with Australian government policy since 1983. Also, the topic I have been assigned is ‘a third strategy’ – which I have amended to ‘alternative strategies’ – and I am focusing on that brief. So what I shall write in no way reflects any official Australian position; indeed a good deal may depart from it.

Hegel pointed out the difference between sollen and sein, between the world as it ought to be and the world as it is in hard reality. The distinction applies forcibly to the case of Antarctica. There are many views about what ought to happen there: what will happen there in fact will be shaped by the interplay of pressures and interests expressed in the policies of governments – with the international conservation movement, in particular, as chorus. It is likely to work itself out over an extended period, and both process and outcome are really impossible to predict.

If I had to make a prediction, my first point would be that the Treaty partners, if they continue to stick together as effectively as they have done so far, and given their considerable recent accretion of membership, are a formidable group. The Treaty has on occasion been described as a house of cards, which could rapidly collapse under pressure.