Antarctic Treaty: Protecting the icy continent

It’s widely regarded as the most successful treaty in the world, and it was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War. The Antarctic Treaty, which came into force in 1961, protects what is one of the most unspoilt places on earth, from mining, from military activity and allows only scientific exploration and peaceful pursuits. It was thanks to the treaty and research carried out in Antarctica that scientists identified a hole in the ozone layer in the 1980s, but it’s been most powerful as a symbol of what can be achieved to create peace between nations and give wilderness protection. So what has made this treaty so effective, and can it still hold up today in a world which is hungry for minerals and where an increasing number of states are seeking to project their technological and scientific prowess in Antarctica?

Joining Bridget Kendall is Birgit Njaastad, the Chair of the Committee for the Environmental Protection of the Antarctic, and for more than 25 years a Norwegian Polar Institute environmental expert; Professor Alan Hemmings, a specialist on the geopolitics of the Antarctic from the University of Canterbury New Zealand; and Dr Jessica O’Reilly, Associate Professor of International Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington in the United States, and the author of The Technocratic Antarctic. With poetry and song about the Antarctic by the New Zealand poet Bill Manhire. Produced by Anne Khazam for the BBC World Service.

(Photo: Chinstrap Penguins on Half Moon Island, South Shetlands, Antarctica. Credit: V Stokes/ iStock/ Getty Images Plus)