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Valuing Antarctica: Emerging Views from International Studies

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Antarctic Futures

Abstract

In 2011, many countries celebrated the 50th anniversary of the coming into force of the Antarctic Treaty to which 50 countries have now acceded. The Treaty grew out of the success of the International Geophysical Year (1957–1959) and, as a consequence, science has been the principal motivation for engagement with Antarctica, at least overtly. The dominance of science in Antarctic Treaty forums has led to an evidence-based management paradigm, which has many positive aspects but has led to different values being underplayed. People have associated numerous meanings with Antarctica: as a scientific laboratory, a potential source of resources, a source of political influence and as a wilderness, amongst other things. As such, Antarctica has many values, several of which have been recognised, at least implicitly, by the Antarctic Treaty and others explicitly by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. In this chapter, we describe the limited research carried out in the past on values in Antarctica, and we discuss the results of four recent multi-national studies of the values people attribute to Antarctica. These studies reveal several consistent themes, including the widespread value most people hold of the Antarctic wilderness and their desire to protect it. We discuss three possible scenarios for how the management of Antarctica could evolve: Business-As-Usual, Antarctic Sanctuary and World (Resources) Bank. How these or any other scenarios develop will be largely influenced by the values people ascribe to the region. Here, the results of our studies indicate that proactive management actions will strengthen some values, while reactive wait-and-see attitudes towards the protection of certain values, as in the case of wilderness values, are de facto decisions supporting the attrition of these values.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For examples see Anthropology (Graeber 2001); Economics (Anderson 1993); Philosophy (Rescher 1982); Psychology (Rokeach 1973); Sociology (Spates 1983).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury, Canterbury, New Zealand

    Erin Neufeld

  2. Sociology, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, Collegeville, MN, USA

    Jessica O’Reilly

  3. Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Rupert Summerson

  4. Independent Environmental Consultant, 85 Rue du St Michel, 73190, Challes-les-Eaux, France

    Tina Tin

Authors
  1. Erin Neufeld
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  2. Jessica O’Reilly
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  3. Rupert Summerson
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  4. Tina Tin
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Correspondence to Erin Neufeld .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Challes-les-Eaux, Savoie, France

    Tina Tin

  2. Gateway Antarctica University of Canterbury, Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand

    Daniela Liggett

  3. University of Northern British Columbia Outdoor Recreation & Tourism Management, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada

    Patrick T Maher

  4. Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Machiel Lamers

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Neufeld, E., O’Reilly, J., Summerson, R., Tin, T. (2014). Valuing Antarctica: Emerging Views from International Studies. In: Tin, T., Liggett, D., Maher, P., Lamers, M. (eds) Antarctic Futures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6582-5_10

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