1. ‘In a globalising world the use of the global common of Antarctica can never be
sustainable.’ How far do you agree with this view? (20 Marks)
Antarctica is the fourth largest continent; its mountainous and rocky terrain is almost entirely
covered by glacial ice. It is part of the four global common which is a resource area lying outside of
political reach of any one nation state. Over recent years the sustainability of Antarctica has been
questioned due to the increase of globalisation, threatening the sustainability of this common.
I somewhat agree with this statement, as Antarctica’s fishing has been demonstrated to be
unsustainable. The discovery of the islands of the south ocean in the 18 th century led to the start of
exploitation of the area. The first and initially most damaging, of these was the culling of seals for
their fur. By 1800, the fur seals of South Georgia were wiped out and interest then centred on the
South Shetland islands. Within three years, over 30,000 seals had been killed and the population had
almost been eradicated. Whaling began in the 19 th century. The main targets were blue and right
whales; the main products, oil and baleen. As the whale population of the North Atlantic became
reduced by massive exploitation, the walers turned their attention to the Southern Ocean. In 1904,
the Norwegians developed Grytviken on South Georgia, which at its height employed 300 people.
The range of products increased to include meat lean, bone meal, meat extract, in later years, frozen
whale meat. Gryviken was abandoned in 1965 because wale stocks were becoming seriously
depleted and whaling was no longer commercially viable. Fishing quickly replaced whaling, with
Russia and Japanese exploiting the Southern Ocean for rock cod and krill (which is central to the
Antarctic food web) raising serious concerns. This is a highly damaging and unsustainable activity
across lots of areas. Fishing ships may directly destroy marine habitats and contaminate the water by
dumping waste. Additionally, sudden demand for krill products has led to unsustainable fishing, as
they underpin the entire food web of the Southern Ocean such as emperor penguins, seals and killer
whales. However, with the help of governance strategy’s such as the International Whaling
commission (IWC), Antarctica does have the potential to become sustainable. The commission
established the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary, an area of 50 million square kilometres
surrounding Antarctica where they banned all types of commercial whaling and this is to be
reviewed every 10 years. However, Japan has opposed this agreement, along with Norway and
Iceland forming the pro- whaling lobby. When a country acts individually from the common, such as
Japan, it puts the global common area at risk of being depleted. The increasing exploitation of
whales not only affects the regional area of the Southern Ocean as it effects the whole food chain,
but it consequently it affects food and health resources globally. Therefore, in light of this statement
this evidence has proven at present fishing is unsustainable. However, with the renewable to IWC
and further restrictions there is hope to have more sustainable fishing.
On the other hand, future plans show the potential enforcement of sustainability for Antarctica and
therefore disagreement with this statement. The guardian 2018 headlines ‘World’s biggest wildlife
reserve planned for Antarctica in global campaign’. A global campaign is launched to turn a large
1.8m sq. km tract of the sea into the worlds biggest sanctuary protecting the wildlife. This aims to
stop industrial- scale kill fishing in the area. 24 national governments and the EU are members of the
commission of the CCAMLR, which is responsible for the conservation of the Antarctic waters, a
conference was held between the NGOs to work out the best method of enforcing these plans. This
collaboration from multiple NGOS provides potential to make Antarctica a sustainable place in the
future, proving this statement to be incorrect.
I disagree with this statement to a small extent due to the success of the tourism sector that has
proven to be a sustainable practice within Antarctica. Tourists has significantly increased in recent
years from less than 2000 per year in the 1980s to 27,000 in 2011-12. Most visitors arrive by boat
and are taken ashore in limited numbers. 95% of the sites are left undamaged with all human waste
having to be barrelled and transported home leaving very little amounts of litter and waste. Tourism
