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26 - The History of Polar Environmental Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2023

By
Alessandro Antonello  and
Justiina Dahl
Edited by
Adrian Howkins  and
Peder Roberts
Adrian Howkins
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Peder Roberts
Affiliation:
University of Stavanger
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Summary

Over the course of their histories, a range of polities and communities have reached into higher latitudes to control and benefit from polar spaces and resources, enrolling what they thought of as peripheral regions into global geopolitical, legal, and economic systems. In the process they have taken to the poles certain ideas of resource use, value, and humanity’s relationship with nature and the environment. With these ideas came practices that disrupted polar ecologies, eviscerated animal populations, polluted landscapes, and undermined Indigenous societies and cultures. From the mid-twentieth century, more extensive national and international frameworks of environmental governance have emerged, including through legislation, treaties, and other conservation practices, to attenuate human impacts and foster some level of ecological productivity and resilience.

Keywords

ArcticAntarctichistoryenvironmentgovernanceAntarctic TreatyconservationCold War
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions , pp. 648 - 671
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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