Antarctica
it was around 350 bc the Greek philosopher aristotle was among the first people to say that the earth was spherical. at the time the greek's were aware of the arctic regions in the north. they had named it the arctos. the constellation's that we can see in the sky one of them is of the greek bear they were inspired by that constellation and named the arctic region arctos. because they knew that the earth is spherical they knew that the north and south are like mirror image and would have similar features. so they named the unknown southern region Antarctic. it meant antithetical to the bear. the opposite of arctos. and from here the name Antarctic was derived.
Humans stepped on antartica for the first time during the 1980's , but hundreds of years before that antartica had Started appearing on maps. when several explores went on expeditions around the world, they knew that if they went to the south of the world they come upon some land. but they didn't know that was on the land exactly. and how big it is. this is why when the french explorers, made the world map in the year 1530 they had drawn antartica. about 200 years later in 1773 british naval officer james cook became the first person to go to the south of the antarctic circle. he was about 130 km father from antartica when he turned his ship around. evan though he hadn't seen antartica he hed seen iceberg's with rock deposits on them. when he saw those rocks he concluded that terra australi's does exist. but going much closer to antartica was so dangerous, that he had famously said " i can be bold enough to say no man will ever venture farther than I have done and that the lands which lie to the south will never be explored." He was so sure that no one could reach antartica because the place was so perilous. with strong winds blowing and the ship at danger of hitting iceberg's at any moment. but his word were proven wrong 50 years later. it is quite controversial as to who was the first person to step on antartica. Because several people claim to have been the first person " british american captain John davis believed that he was the first person to do so because his ship was lost and he reached antartica.
The first undisputed landing was in 1895 when a Norwegian ship called the antarctic reached its shores. 7 membar 's of the crew of this ship got into a small boat and went on to the land. a Norwegian in the boat was carsten borchgrevink claims that he landed before the boat and he was the first to step on antartica but a man from new zealand, Alexander, claims to have been on this boat and to keep the boat steady he was the first one to step out of the boat. these two person from the same boat got into an argument about who was the first to get off and the first to step on antartica. after this the first 20 years of the 1900s are known as the heroic years of antartica. because many expeditions were conducted during this time there we're new scientific discoveries and we found out many new things about antartica. it was the first time we found out that there are plants growing on this continent.
mosses were found growing in antartica. after this heroic era came the colonial period of antartica. when several countries tried to lay claim on antarctica. between 1908 and 1942, 7 countries claimed sovereignty over this continent. Argentina, Australia, chile, france, new zealand, norway and the United Kingdom. a part from them there were countries the USA, the Soviet union, Japan, Sweden, Belgium and Germany, who were conducting exploration's conducting new expeditions on antarctica without claiming any territory.
During hitler's rules in 1939, a german antarctic expedition was carried out in which they flew in an aeroplane to take pictures of some areas of the antarctic. they even dropped metal nazi swastikas, claiming that the areas where the swastikas were dropped were under the control of nazi germany. surprisingly during this period the usa wasn't very active. in 1924 the secretary of state in America announced their official position regarding the territorial claims on antarctica. he said that if any country discovers new land in Antarctica it doesn't mean that the new area's would belong to the country. the land would belong to the country only when there are actual settlement in the area. when the citizens of the country live there permanently. after the end of world war 2, these countries started fighting each other over their claims on antarctica's land. by fighting I do not mean literal warfare what I mean is that they were expressing their claims more strongly. these countries set up permanent research centres in Antarctica. to show that they have a permanent station in the area. and since researchers were living there permanently they claimed the land theirs. the heard and Macquarie Islands, on which australia established stations in 1947-1948. in 1953 france set up bases on kerguelen and crozet island's. the next year in 1954 australia reached mainland antarctica. and set up the mawson station. in was on antarctica's continent. one year later argentina set up the general belgrano station this was in Antarctica on the filchner ronne ice shelf. thare so much ice in Antarctica in market in difficult to know if there is land under all that ice. setting up research stations had become a political strategy of the countries. at one point the British chilean and argentina bases were so close to each other that it was clearly evident that they weren't set up solely for scientific research. it was clearly evident that these stations were being set up for intelligence activities. in fact the territorial claims of these countries on Antarctica overlap.
In 1950, the Soviet union government issued a memorandum to the reat of the world. saying that if a country claimed antarctica's territory without the soviet union permission and if it made decision regarding antarctica with the Soviet participation the soviets would not recognise any such claims. by this time cold war had broken out between america and russia and people were afraid that the two countries start their geopolitics in antarctica as well. these countries were already fighting each other in multiple areas of the world but no one wanted them to be fighting on antarctica too. but thankfully it didn't happen.
In 1958, american president Eisenhower issued notice to the rest of the government's calling for a treaty to ensure that antarctica would always be a free and peacefull place.
In Washington on 15th October 1959 a conference was help on it. on 1st December 1959 the the antarctic treaty was signed. there were three major points in this treaty.
First: antarctica would be used for peaceful purposes only.
Second: everyone would be free to carry out scientific investigation.
Third: the result of the scientific observation, would be freely exchanged and available to all.
Initially this, treaty was signed by 12 government's including all countries which were claiming territory on Antarctica. but the most interesting thing about this treaty is that the claims of these countries weren't abolished. this treaty merely suspended those claims temporarily. so legally even now these countries can continue to claim those territories and they are doing so indeed and they are doing so indeed. that america rejects the claims of these countries. not only america most of the counties around the world reject these territorial claims. not only this these 7 countries claiming territory in Antarctica. do not recognise each other claims. france, Australia, new zealandland, and norway recognise each other's claims but the uk, chile, and Argentina do not recognise each other's claims because their territories overlap.
Today, the counties that claim land in Antarctica merely have a symbolic claim. this treaty had temporarily suspended the claims but it also means that on the expiry of the treaty these territorial claims would become important. this is why these 7 countries have held onto their claims over antarctica. this treaty is set to expire in 2050. post that whether this treaty would be renewed and not will have to be seen. but thankfully with the help of the treaty in the present there has been little to no geopolitics in Antarctica and more scientific research. this has benefitted scientists hugely. the international council of scientific unions established a special committee to conduct research on the antarctic. under which scientist from different countries are coordinating together. this is why every year about 4,500 scientists go to Antarctica to work. and a strong collaboration between scientists from different countries has been seen.
About 30 years later in December 1981 India launched its first expedition to Antarctica. India did so quite secretly. so that other countries didn't know about it. It was led by renowned marine biologist dr. syed zahoor qasim. India had borrowed an ice breaker ship from norway called the polar circle to carry out this expedition. this expedition was successful the new scientist magazine published the headline indians quietly invade Antarctica in jest. It wasn't real invasion it was a research expedition. but doing so was illegal because india wasn't a part of the antarctic treaty. so technically india wasn't allowed to go there and conduct research. at the time india was also a part of the non aligned movement. during the cold war between the US and the soviet union most of the counties had taken sides. but india was non aligned. we didn't support either of the two countries.
In 1983, the non aligned countries pressurised the United nations so much that finally the general assembly of the United nations had to concede and agreed to take up the topic of Antarctica in the next meeting. about 1 mount before the meeting india signed the antarctic treaty and applied for the consultative party status. this was quite shocking for the rest of the countries because till that point in time india was against the antarctic treaty and then it abruptly changed its stance and signed the antarctic treaty.
Today there two active stations of India in Antarctica in which constant studies and research on geology are being conducted. the second expedition of india to Antarctica included scientist sudipta sengupta in her research she studied that the schirmacher hills on the coast of Antarctica was actually a part of the fault line joined to the Indian subcontinent. it had broken apart from India from that point and the Himalayas were formed and india became a part of the continent of Asia. later in 1991 an environmental protection treaty was signed in Antarctica also known as the madrid protocol because it was signed in madrid the capital of Spain. In this treaty finally restrictions were put on drilling and mining activities in Antarctica. no contry can do drilling and mining in Antarctica. so that antarctica is protected. it was very important to do so because many countries are scavengers when it comes to oil. under the guise of exploration of oil a large number of place have been destroyed.
In a study, from 1992 the US geological survey experts found 19 billion barrels of oil under antarctica can be recovered. mineral explorers in russia claim that there are 500 billion barrels of oil and gas under antarctica. but there are two reasons why till now oil mining hasn't been conducted in antarctic. the madrid protocol is the first reason the treaty that keeps us protected from such instances and the other reason is that it will be quite expensive to do so. at least for now. but in the future due to climate change the threat may increase further. as this ice is melting due to climate change it is becoming easier to access Antarctica. new technologies will be developed with time and perhaps then it wouldn't be an expensive affair and it becomes economically viable to extract oil and gas from there. as i told you this treaty will expire in 2050. if these countries do not renew this treaty this can be possible after that, several countries have taken to fishing in the oceans near antarctica and exploiting it. Like China. china has recently expanded fishing and tourism there. Actually after the year 2000, china is the only country which has set up research station in Antarctica. no other country has set up new stations. apart from this according to the date from 2018 there were several private yachts carrying wealthy private individuals which went to mainland antarctica and illegally exploited nature there. several countries talk about the ocean around antarctica should come under a new treaty to regulate things so that there is no overfishing there. and the ensure that no one enters the ocean illegally and it becomes a protected area as well.
After 2003, there is a permanent physical presence of the antarctic treaty as well. the headquarter is in buenos aries argentina. if you look at this in the sense of geopolitics today antarctica is not a country. it is a political territory where several countries have come together to collaborate and divided power among them equally but antarctica doesn't have any police force no army and no legal system. the loopholes of this treaty can be seen being exploited even now. for tourists can go to the British station in Antarctica named the port lockroy and can get their passport stamped there, even in the territories of chile and Argentina tourists can get their passport stamped. it is another way through which these countries express their claims.
Thank you......
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