Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay approved bringing about greater synergy to position Latin America more prominently within the Antarctic Treaty System, during the 33rd Meeting of Latin American Antarctic Program Administrators (RAPAL), in Quito, Ecuador, August 23-26. Colombia, Venezuela, and Costa Rica attended as observers, the Chilean Joint Chiefs of Staff indicated.
“We need to unify the proposals as Latin America within the Antarctic Treaty,” said Patricia Ortúzar, head of the National Antarctic Directorate of the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Argentine digital daily Página 12. “We want to generate this Latin American strengthening, so we are seeking to cooperate even with observers or with countries that are not full or consultative members of the Antarctic Treaty.”
RAPAL is a Latin American forum created to promote cooperation and mutual support in scientific, technical, logistical, and environmental activities in the Antarctic area, to join and coordinate efforts, in accordance with the principles and objectives established in the Antarctic Treaty System.
The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 in Washington, D.C. to ensure freedom of scientific research, the promotion of international cooperation for scientific purposes, conservation, and peace on the continent. It was initially signed by 12 nations, but currently has 54-member countries.
At the conclusion of RAMPAL XXXIII, participating countries recommended developing stations with meteorological, oceanographic, and seismic information, in order to establish a network to obtain and share information among the countries that operate in Antarctica.
Participants also recommended creating a group of specialists in microplastic pollution to enforce its reduction or elimination and advocated for the creation of a program for the conservation of Barrientos Island, in the South Shetland archipelago, which is one of the most visited enclaves in Antarctica due to its biological richness, Spanish environmental platform Ambientum reported in 2020.
The RAPAL meeting occurred at a time when China and Russia continue to use the guise of scientific research to stake further claim on the Antarctic continent.
“Russia and China seem to have their eyes set on mining the pristine Antarctic, an act currently prohibited by the international treaty,” Professor Klaus Dodds, a geopolitics expert at the University of London, told London-based daily Express. The expert is concerned that both countries could withdraw from the Antarctic Treaty, thereby unleashing their drive to exploit mineral resources on the continent.
“China is thinking about the geostrategic and geoeconomic scenarios of the next four or five decades and intends to secure access to natural resources such as water, minerals, oil, and others that are very relevant,” Guillermo Holzmann, a Chilean defense analyst and academic at the University of Valparaíso’s School of Economic and Administrative Sciences, told Diálogo. “From the 1980s onward, China has not only had summer bases, but permanent ones in Antarctica.”
The Antarctic Treaty is set to end in 2048, just a year prior to the Chinese Communist Revolution’s centenary, which, according to Holzmann, will be an emblematic year for China, and will surely have Antarctica as the center of a global conflict. “With this, China emerges as a risk and a threat to the interests of the powers that have traditionally been there, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, with a power that is slowly but consistently consolidating, and that can turn Antarctica into a theatre of conflict very quickly.”
In this scenario, Professor Dodd added, rival treaty systems for Antarctica, or even a complete breakdown of governance, is a possibility.