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GREENPEACE WORLD PARK BASE
ANTARCTIC DIARY 23
Jan 11,1990
Our Resupply ship the MV Gondwana has left Auckland, New Zealand
on the second leg of this years campaign to have this vast frozen
continent protected as a World Park. This last twelve months
living at Cape Evans has been a remarkable time for me both
personally and as a small part of the world wide movement for
environmental protection. When we left New Zealand on 22nd
December 1988 the challenge was to highlight Antarctica's place
in the mind's of people all around the world. From the many
contacts we have had from many countries and from hearing about
the growing influence of the Green political movement I feel sure
that we humans are collectively changing our awareness of the
natural world and in particular Antarctica's place in natural
order of things.
It has long been a fear that oil exploration and exploitation was
the biggest and most imminent danger that the natural world faced
in Antarctica. 1989 seems to have been a year full of examples
of the damage that can be done in the polar regions when fuel
spills occur. In our own backyard we saw for ourselves that
where large quantities of fuel are handled the possiblities for
large spills seems to be almost inevitable. The US McMurdo
Station, 25Km to the south has had a series of large fuel spills
in the last eighteen months ( Over 450 000 Litres or nearly 118
000 US Gals ) and none of these spills have been cleaned up to
date. While we were investigating the environmental impact of
one of these spills in early October we uncovered yet another
fuel spill which was later admitted to be in fact a number of
spills going back as far as 1983 and no records exist of these
periodic spills. This spill site was only 150 Metres from New
Zealand's Scott Base and was on an area of foreshore sea-ice that
thaws each summer thus releasing the contaminating fuel directly
into the sea.
Both New Zealand and the US are major sponsors of the Minerals
Convention which is an agreement among the Antarctic Treaty
signatory nations. This Convention which is also know around the
world as the Wellington Convention, after the capital city of New
Zealand was negotiated behind closed doors, sets out the
conditions under which minerals can be extracted from Antarctica.
There are a growing number of governments, now responding to
public opinion at home opposing the ratification of this Minerals
Convention. Australia, France, Italy and Belgium have rejected
the convention and along with a number of other countries are
actively pushing for a comprehensive Envronmental Protection
agreement for Antarctica in the form of a Wilderness Reserve.
Oil hungry nations and their supporters remain in favour of this
Miners Convention stating that they wish to keep their options
open for future oil exploration of Antarctica while reluctantly
pursuing the more sensible path of energy conservation and the
development of alternative energy systems.
Well, in my last diary written at World Park Base I found myself
with the treat of oil-exploration in my mind and I haven't
written about the Polar summer that is blazing around me. I
suspect that there are two factors involved in my preoccupation.
The news of the rusting hulk of the Kharg 5 tanker spilling its
contents uncontrollably into the Atlantic off the Morroccan coast
has brought back to me the 1989 events... the Bahia Paraiso -
Anvers Isand Antarctica, the Exxon Valdez - Prince Philips Sound
Alaska, the US South Pole Station, the US airfield McMurdo Sound
Antarctica... all sites of environmental disasters in Polar
regions. The other factor is that as a New Zealander I am
saddened by the fact that my government remains a major sponsor
of a Miners Convention for Antarctica.
Outside my window the sea-ice is in full-melt and the stretches
of open water are growing before our eyes. In the Cape Evans
area more than twenty Weddell Seals are basking ashore and the
Skua chicks are growing. The amazing thaw that we have
experienced this year continues to feed the thousands of little
streams and dozens of miniature lakes that dot the area. We have
had about two week of settled weather, ideal for preparing the
base for the arrival of our resupply ship and our many old
friends.
My kindest regards to all our supporters and friends as my time
here at World Park base comes rapidly to and end.
Phil Doherty.