Via Greenlink II ================================================================= GREENPEACE WORLD PARK BASE ANTARCTIC DIARY 23 Jan 11,1990 Our Resupply ship the MV Gondwana has left Auckland, New Zealand on the second leg of this years campaign to have this vast frozen continent protected as a World Park. This last twelve months living at Cape Evans has been a remarkable time for me both personally and as a small part of the world wide movement for environmental protection. When we left New Zealand on 22nd December 1988 the challenge was to highlight Antarctica's place in the mind's of people all around the world. From the many contacts we have had from many countries and from hearing about the growing influence of the Green political movement I feel sure that we humans are collectively changing our awareness of the natural world and in particular Antarctica's place in natural order of things. It has long been a fear that oil exploration and exploitation was the biggest and most imminent danger that the natural world faced in Antarctica. 1989 seems to have been a year full of examples of the damage that can be done in the polar regions when fuel spills occur. In our own backyard we saw for ourselves that where large quantities of fuel are handled the possiblities for large spills seems to be almost inevitable. The US McMurdo Station, 25Km to the south has had a series of large fuel spills in the last eighteen months ( Over 450 000 Litres or nearly 118 000 US Gals ) and none of these spills have been cleaned up to date. While we were investigating the environmental impact of one of these spills in early October we uncovered yet another fuel spill which was later admitted to be in fact a number of spills going back as far as 1983 and no records exist of these periodic spills. This spill site was only 150 Metres from New Zealand's Scott Base and was on an area of foreshore sea-ice that thaws each summer thus releasing the contaminating fuel directly into the sea. Both New Zealand and the US are major sponsors of the Minerals Convention which is an agreement among the Antarctic Treaty signatory nations. This Convention which is also know around the world as the Wellington Convention, after the capital city of New Zealand was negotiated behind closed doors, sets out the conditions under which minerals can be extracted from Antarctica. There are a growing number of governments, now responding to public opinion at home opposing the ratification of this Minerals Convention. Australia, France, Italy and Belgium have rejected the convention and along with a number of other countries are actively pushing for a comprehensive Envronmental Protection agreement for Antarctica in the form of a Wilderness Reserve. Oil hungry nations and their supporters remain in favour of this Miners Convention stating that they wish to keep their options open for future oil exploration of Antarctica while reluctantly pursuing the more sensible path of energy conservation and the development of alternative energy systems. Well, in my last diary written at World Park Base I found myself with the treat of oil-exploration in my mind and I haven't written about the Polar summer that is blazing around me. I suspect that there are two factors involved in my preoccupation. The news of the rusting hulk of the Kharg 5 tanker spilling its contents uncontrollably into the Atlantic off the Morroccan coast has brought back to me the 1989 events... the Bahia Paraiso - Anvers Isand Antarctica, the Exxon Valdez - Prince Philips Sound Alaska, the US South Pole Station, the US airfield McMurdo Sound Antarctica... all sites of environmental disasters in Polar regions. The other factor is that as a New Zealander I am saddened by the fact that my government remains a major sponsor of a Miners Convention for Antarctica. Outside my window the sea-ice is in full-melt and the stretches of open water are growing before our eyes. In the Cape Evans area more than twenty Weddell Seals are basking ashore and the Skua chicks are growing. The amazing thaw that we have experienced this year continues to feed the thousands of little streams and dozens of miniature lakes that dot the area. We have had about two week of settled weather, ideal for preparing the base for the arrival of our resupply ship and our many old friends. My kindest regards to all our supporters and friends as my time here at World Park base comes rapidly to and end. Phil Doherty.