AMERICAN conservationists and scientists last week called on the US government to rescue an international environmental protocol for Antarctica from legal limbo almost five years after it was signed. The protocol, an amendment to the Antarctic Treaty, would impose strict controls on activities such as waste disposal and construction and prohibit all mining and drilling for 50 years.
The protocol has been signed by the 26 nations active in Antarctica, and which are signatories to the treaty. But it has not yet come into force because six countriesJapan, India, Belgium, Finland, Russia and the UShave still not ratified it.
Kathryn Fuller, president of the World Wildlife Fund in the US, last week urged Congress to ratify the protocol and encourage the other five countries to do the same. "If we lose the momentum it may be years and years [before the amendment comes into force]," she told the ...
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