The Greening Of Antarctica

"Antarctica is a deeply contested place. It is not an unchanging wilderness or quiet and passive continent at the bottom of the earth. Today, a community of scientists, institutions, industries, activists, private citizens and nation-states are deeply connected to the region. These actors pursue a variety of projects and hold an array of visions for the region: scientists want a pristine laboratory, nation-states want peace and order, fishermen want to exploit fisheries, environmentalists want total protection and conservation, tourists want a wild landscape, and miners dream of a future when they can dig and drill. Amidst a fray of ideas, one vision of the region has come to dominate: Antarctica is a fragile and pristine environment demanding international protection and management. The Greening of Antarctica offers the first sustained historical analysis of how a community of states and scientists envisioned and created an international system of management in the 1960s and 1970s. These were the first two decades of an international regime beginning with the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 and culminating in 1980 with the signature of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, when the fundamental elements of this international system were in place. Using a wide range of archival sources from four national archives and other institutional repositories, many newly opened, this book fills a significant gap in our understanding of Antarctic history and uncovers the foundations of contemporary Antarctica"--