Depress­ing as head­lines shout­ing ad nau­se­um about Covid, the cri­sis in Ukraine and U.S. pol­i­tics etc are, there is some­thing in the world to cel­e­brate — the anniver­sary of an accom­plish­ment wor­thy of Hamlet’s famous line: “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in rea­son, how infi­nite in fac­ul­ty! In form and mov­ing how express and admirable!”.

Signed on 1 Decem­ber 1959 and entered into force on 23 June 1961, the Antarc­ti­ca Treaty has ensured that one place on earth has nev­er seen war, the envi­ron­ment is ful­ly pro­tect­ed and sci­en­tif­ic research has pri­or­i­ty. It is arguably the most suc­cess­ful agree­ment of its kind. Con­sid­er­ing the continent’s ear­ly his­to­ry and the wealth it may con­tain, that’s quite a feat.
Cap­tain James Cook spent the years 1772 to 1775 look­ing for a place rumoured to exist for mil­len­nia. He had no idea he’d come with­in 80 miles of it when he wrote:

“The risk one runs in explor­ing a coast in these unknown and Icy Seas, is so very great, that I can be bold to say, that no man will ever ven­ture far­ther than I have done and that the lands which may lie to the South will nev­er be explored.” As one of history’s great­est explor­ers and sea­far­ers, Cook of all peo­ple should have known bet­ter. Less than fifty years from Cook’s fail­ure, men set foot on Antarctica.
Depend­ing on whose ver­sion you believe, they were either from a Russ­ian expe­di­tion on Jan­u­ary 27, 1820, or a British one three days later.
As is the nature of humankind, rapa­cious com­mer­cial ven­tures hell-bent on exploit­ing the nat­ur­al resources fol­lowed in quick suc­ces­sion. Fur seals and whales were hunt­ed near­ly to extinc­tion. Dis­card­ed whale bones, pre­served by the cold and short­age of nat­ur­al scav­engers, are stark evi­dence of human predation.

Thank­ful­ly, some came only to sate anoth­er dis­tinct­ly human appetite — the need to ven­ture into the unknown, and be the first to do so. Roald Amund­sen, Robert Scott and Ernest Shack­le­ton are the best known, but scores of oth­ers pushed courage and endurance beyond lim­its unfath­omable to nor­mal peo­ple. Even today, Antarc­ti­ca remains a place where only the tough­est and bravest succeed.

   DIFFERENT EXTREMES

This month British Army phys­io­ther­a­pist Preet Chan­di became the first woman of colour to ski solo to the South Pole.
To learn more about the abil­i­ty of humans to sur­vive on Mars, NASA is track­ing two explor­ers on an 80 day, 2,268-mile (3,650 kilo­me­ters) trek across Antarc­ti­ca. Along the way they are mea­sur­ing and mon­i­tor­ing pret­ty much every­thing that hap­pens to minds and bod­ies pushed to the utmost.
On a far less­er lev­el, in Novem­ber a “bou­tique air­line” did anoth­er Antarc­ti­ca “first” by land­ing an Air­bus A340 on a 3,000-meter (10,000 ft) run­way carved out of the ice. That ought to be wor­ry­ing, rather than cel­e­brat­ed. Small­er planes have been tak­ing lim­it­ed num­bers of tourists to the frozen south for sev­er­al years. Antarctica’s native species have been iso­lat­ed for the past 15 to 30-mil­lion years. But as num­bers increase, so does the dan­ger of inva­sive species, espe­cial­ly marine species that can cling to the hulls of research, fish­ing and tourism vessels.
Full dis­clo­sure: I went to Antarc­ti­ca as a tourist and would do it again in a hear­beat. But, I has­ten to add, it was on a small ship. Tour oper­a­tors licenced to work in Antarc­ti­ca are expect­ed to observe and enforce pro­tec­tive pro­to­cols to the nth degree.

When we went ashore (twice a day) boots were cleaned and dis­in­fect­ed before leav­ing the ship and on re-board­ing. The rules were clear and sim­ple: No dis­turb­ing the wildlife (which includes “Give Way to Pen­guins” march­ing to and from the sea). Take noth­ing but pic­tures, leave noth­ing but foot­prints. At most we ven­tured less than a kilo­me­ter from the shore­line. And it was wise to make sure you did what par­ents warn kids to do before a long car jour­ney, because you have to ‘hold it’ no mat­ter what.

                               MODERN THREATS

Even with all that, how­ev­er, Antarc­ti­ca isn’t safe from the “plague of the day”. “A Bel­gian sci­en­tif­ic research sta­tion in Antarc­ti­ca is deal­ing with an out­break of Covid-19, despite work­ers being ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed and based in one of the world’s remotest regions.”
The remote­ness means the out­break can be con­tained. Self-iso­la­tion from anoth­er prob­lem the world seems inca­pable to the point of will­ful self- destruc­tion to prop­er­ly address, is anoth­er matter.
An inter­na­tion­al team of researchers con­clud­ed Antarctica’s Thwait­es glac­i­er is in dan­ger of col­laps­ing by 2030 due to glob­al warm­ing. Dubbed “the Dooms­day glac­i­er”, it con­tains enough water to raise sea lev­els world-wide by more than half a metre (near­ly two feet).
One of the pro­vi­sions of the Antarc­ti­ca Treaty is that no nation will stake a ter­ri­to­r­i­al claim on the con­ti­nent. Cli­mate change holds ter­ri­to­r­i­al lim­its in dis­dain. That alone ought to be impe­tus for nations to deal with it in the spir­it of the world’s most suc­cess­ful joint effort.
 If they fail to do so, Ham­let has anoth­er fit­ting line: “I have of late — but where­fore I know not — lost all my mirth…”
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