Apportioning Antarctica

In February 1981, President Reagan made the United States the seventh party to a new convention governing the world's largest ecosystem—the Southern Ocean that encircles Antarctica. With one-fifth of the world's ocean water by volume, its abundant life, including fish, zooplankton, penguins, other birds, seals, and whales, depends mostly on a single species that may be the most prolific animal species on earth, Euphausia superba, better known as Antarctic krill.

Krill fishing

The krill have become the object of intensive search by Soviet and Japanese fishing vessels ever since their whale catches in the Antarctic declined abruptly in the mid-1960s. Last year, fishermen may have taken from 120,000 to 500,000 tons. The shrimplike little animals are rich in protein and often swarm near the surface in large patches (one seen in March 1981 may have contained 10 million tons—or one-seventh of the world's fish catch!). Swarming makes krill easy prey for birds and other predators—including the fishermen.

Although some say the fishery can sustain annual catches of 70 million tons, marine biologists in several countries are concerned that krill fishing, especially if it expands to a million tons per year or more, would take away food from the whales. Whales fast for eight months a year in temperate oceans and come to the Antarctic in the austral spring to feed. Food availability in this huge ecosystem is not well understood. As one species gets more numerous, does it mean the others are taking less? Or is there a krill "surplus" for everyone, including humans?

The new agreement, titled the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, commits those nations that are parties to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and others who fish in the region to assure that overfishing does not harm the ecosystem. As with most fishing treaties, the major fishing powers, including the USSR and Japan, are signing on, hoping to influence the new commission to be as lenient as possible. Indeed, the agreement has no provision for national quotas or any of the other, usual tools of fisheries regulation. Protection of the fishery will depend on nations such as the United Kingdom, Norway, and the United States that historically have been concerned with whales and with international environmental issues. They will have to undertake the research needed to patrol what happens here.

How many krill?

How are krill to be counted in view of standing stock estimates that range from 180 to 1,400 million metric tons? Even if the swarms could be measured accurately, how many other krill swim individually? How many are "hiding" under the pack ice? Over the years, detailed estimates of whale and seal populations have been made, but the area's fish and squid populations are unknown, let alone the amount of krill they consume each year. No firm knowledge of longevity exists, nor a means of determining krill ages, because their body types regress after reproduction. Many such questions must be answered in order to regulate this fishery.

A major issue in Antarctica's future is what role, if any, the United States will play in the evolution of this enormous potential protein source. Several nations carry out krill research, but the U.S. Antarctic program, which traditionally funds university basic research, has not yet taken up the fisheries question. A National Academy of Sciences committee report issued last year did recommend that the United States undertake a program aimed partly at satisfying basic research needs—such as the physical oceanography associated with krill swarms—and partly at supporting the new convention. But so far, no program has been mounted, despite the fact that the treaty may take effect as soon as 1983. A major drawback to U.S. participation is the lack of oceangoing polar research vessels that can work systematically in the stormy, icy seas of the southern ocean.

Mineral questions

More is at stake in Antarctica's future than krill and the Soviet and Japanese fishing fleets pursuing them. Ownership of the continent and the disposition of its minerals now are under negotiation as well. The new krill convention was negotiated by the consultative parties to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, an arrangement that quieted territorial disputes and the threat of military action there. Resource questions were too contentious for the signers to agree on in 1959, so the treaty does not address them. But now that the group has concluded one related agreement on krill, it is forging ahead to negotiate another that would allocate rights to Antarctic minerals, including likely reserves of hydrocarbons offshore.

But, unlike fish, minerals do not drift in the high seas, available to the first comer. They are tied to the land and are inseparable from the question of who owns it. So it will be difficult to decide on rights to Antarctic minerals—to give a mining company, say, clear title to its product—when the Antarctic Treaty powers disagree so deeply about who has title to the land in which the minerals occur. Territorial claims seem to be the treaty powers' stone of Sisyphus: every time they roll it uphill and can breathe a little, it rolls back down to burden them again. Somehow, this impediment will have to be set aside or circumvented if they are to reach accord.

The U.S. role

As with krill, the United States is playing a key role in the diplomacy concerning Antarctic minerals. American diplomats want to continue the treaty through 1991 (when it can be reviewed and changed). By then they hope to have in force—in addition to an earlier sealing agreement and the current one on krill—a minerals accord and perhaps one on criminal jurisdiction. Thus, in 1991 the treaty could be renewed as a secure jewel in a crown of administrative arrangements for this enormous region.

But will the rest of the world buy it? Will they get anything from the treaty and these satellite agreements on resources? Or will they denounce the whole system as a cover for a few nations to appropriate their common heritage for themselves? Prom a U.S. viewpoint, is the path down which we are leading the others a wise one?

The United States is helping to commit the treaty powers, and itself, to a risky international course, whose success will depend on both the quality of knowledge about the region and the appearance of international equity. Things could get dicey in Antarctic politics over the next decade. In a sense, President Reagan's signature on the krill convention was only the beginning.