Antarctica: Polluters to pay

2005-06-17 22:18

Stockholm - A two-week conference on pollution in the Antarctic wrapped up here on Friday, with delegates boasting a major breakthrough on a deal ensuring that polluters in the future will be held accountable for the messes they make in the region.

"The major outcome of the conference was the finalisation, after 13 to 14 years of negotiations, of the liability annex" to the existing protocol on environmental protection to the Antarctic Treaty, said Tony Press, the Australian chair of the committee for environmental protection.

About 300 experts, including representatives from 45 governments attended the meeting, the 28th conference on the Antarctica Treaty.

The delegates agreed late on Tuesday on the annex that will hold companies and nations financially responsible for "environmental emergencies" in Antarctica, which covers 14 million square kilometres and where 90% of the planet's ice is to be found.

Environmental protection fund

According to the new annex, an operator that is found to have created an environmental crisis in the region will be required to take immediate action to rectify the situation.

If it fails to do so, it will still need to bear the cost of any action taken by others, or pay the equivalent of the clean-up cost into an environmental protection fund.

A 1959 treaty signed by 12 states recognised Antarctica's role in the global climate and laid down that it was in the interest of mankind that the white continent continue to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and should not become the theatre or object of international conflict.

In addition to the liability annexure, delegates at the conference discussed concerns about growing tourism to the area.

"This year, there are about 30 000 tourists in the region... there is no direct evidence of tourism having any impact, but there are concerns," said Press, adding that the tourism issue also gave rise to worries about the "introduction of non-native species" to the pristine Antarctic environment.

"We have to ensure that organisms and disease are not introduced," he said.

The impact of global warming on the region was also on the agenda, after experts recently warned that climate change was causing about 200 glaciers along the coasts to melt.

Ice sheets, glaciers are melting

"Especially in the Antarctic peninsula area, the impacts of warming over the past 50 years are quite obvious," Press said, adding that sea surface temperatures had risen and that glaciers and ice sheets were melting.

The Antarctic Peninsula is a long strip of territory that stretches up towards the southern tip of Latin America.

Possibly as a result of the increasing temperatures as well as of illegal fishing, there also have been some changes in species numbers in the region.

"Some penguin species are growing in number... and due to illegal fishing there is a species of albatross that is endangered," Press said.

- AFP