NEW ZEALAND last week vowed to push for a comprehensive environmental
protection protocol for Antarctica when the Antarctic Treaty nations meet
in Chile in November. The protocol includes an absolute ban on mining in
the region. It also urges nations with facilities in the Antarctic to send
home any waste they produce there.
New Zealand’s position brings it in line with Australian policy, which
favours world park status for Antarctica (This Week, 1 September). In February,
the New Zealand government decided not to ratify an international convention
to govern mining in Antarctica, even though it had been a leading advocate
of it since as early as 1982.
Philip Woollaston, the New Zealand minister for conservation, told an
Antarctica conference in Auckland last weekend that a new treaty or convention
to protect the Antarctic would ‘waste a lot of time’ and threaten the existing
Antarctic Treaty. ‘The government’s view is that we need a protocol to the
treaty,’ he said.
New Zealand’s new draft protocol builds on existing pollution controls
and includes measures to regulate tourism and protect Antarctic fauna and
flora. It will also propose the establishment of a secretariat to ease the
swap of data and opinions.