Text Fwd: Scramble For World Resources: Battle For Antarctica

* Text Informed at Stop NATO

Rick Rozoff, May 16, 2009
Scramble For World Resources: Battle For Antarctica

The Arctic and Antarctica are the last vast untapped
reservoirs of mineral resources on the planet. [1]

If the expansion of Australia's territory is
formalized, this will disrupt the operation of
international legal mechanisms, which have already
been seriously affected by the proclamation of
Kosovo's independence.

Worse still, this will open the door to a large-scale
re-division of the world. The South Pole precedent
could be applied in the North Pole, which will turn
the struggle for the Arctic resources into a global
war, inevitably involving Russia. [2]

May 13th of this year marked the deadline for "states to stake their claims in what some experts are describing as the last big carve-up of maritime territory in history," Reuters reported in October of 2007. [3]

At the time the British Foreign Office announced that it was submitting a claim to expand the nation's Antarctic territory by a million square kilometers and would also submit "four other claims...for Atlantic seabed territory around South Georgia and the Falkland Islands and also around Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, near the Bay of Biscay in the North Atlantic, and in the Hatton-Rockall basin off Scotland's coast." [4]

Prior to 1962, the British Antarctic Territory was a dependency of the Falkland Islands and also included South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

On March 31 of this year Britain made a partial submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf regarding the Hatton-Rockall area in the Northeast Atlantic (Rockall is a miniscule craggy isle, though one with strategic significance way out of proportion to its size), which gives the country its only claim to the Arctic shelf that is estimated to contain a fifth of the world's undiscovered oil and nearly a third of undiscovered natural gas.

London started talks with Iceland, Ireland and Denmark (in its capacity of owner of the Faroe Islands) to jointly use Rockall to penetrate the Arctic in the impending scramble for its resources, a subject that has been explored extensively in another study in this series [5]

In a parallel but far grander move, on this May 11 Britain submitted its claim to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf for the one million square kilometers it covets in the South Atlantic reaching into the Antarctic Ocean.

This was the formalization of plans initially revealed in October of 2007 and described in a press report of the time as a plan to "extend British sovereignty in Antarctica," a zone which "covers a vast area of the seabed around British Antarctica near the south pole." [6]

Immediately nations far nearer Antarctica and as such with better claims to its territory, Argentina most notably, lodged complaints as "The British claim...conflicts with the spirit of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, to which Britain is a signatory, which prevents all exploitation of oil gas and minerals, other than for scientific research." [7]

Alarms were sounded from other quarters too. Shortly after the British announcement the Chinese People's Daily reported:

"The South Pole, a world of ice and snow, has become a hot spot in recent years. The Argentinean Foreign Ministry stated that vice-Foreign Ministers from Argentina and Chile would be meeting in early December to discuss the South Pole issue, and work out a joint strategy to boycott British sovereign demands on the South Pole's continental shelf." [8]

The same source provided this background information:

"The vastness of seemingly barren, ice-covered land is uncovered and exposed to the outside world, revealing a 'treasure basin' with incredibly abundant mineral deposits and energy reserves....A layer of Permian Period coal exists on the mainland, and holds 500 billion tons in known reserves.

"The thick ice dome over the land is home to the world's largest reservoir for fresh water; holds approximately 29.3 million cubic kilometers of ice;
and makes up 75% of earth's fresh water supply.

"It is possible to say that the South Pole could feed the entire world
with its abundant supplies of food [fish] and fresh water."

And warned that the "the value of the South Pole is not confined to the economic sphere; it also lies in its strategic position.

"The US Coast Guard has long had garrisons in the region, and the US Air Force [is] the number one air power in the region.

"[T]he South Pole [Antarctic] Treaty points out that the South Pole can only be exploited and developed for the sake of peace; and can not be a battle ground. Otherwise, the ice-cold South Pole could prove a fiercely hot battlefield." [9]

Within weeks of the British statement in 2007 Chilean Defense Minister Jose Goni and Air Force Chief of Staff General Ricardo Ortega visited the South Pole "declaring that the use of the Arturo Prat naval base would be formally resumed in March 2008.

"Goni said the resumption of the use of the naval base, along with another two military bases in the Antarctic region, is to demonstrate the presence and sovereignty of Chile...." [10]

* For continued reading: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/39469