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The British government has changed its tactics in the row over the future
of Antarctica, the Foreign Office confirmed this week. Until last week the
government was publicly still committed to salvaging the Wellington Convention
on Antarctic mineral resources, which would allow mining and drilling for
oil. The Foreign Office now says: ‘The minerals issues must take a back
seat to the environment.’

A spokesperson for Greenpeace, however, said: ‘The government is still
sitting on the fence.’ It called on the government to use its influence
among the Antarctic treaty nations to take a lead. This week the nations
are meeting in Chile to discuss plans for protecting the continent’s environment.
France and Australia back the idea of turning Antarctica into a world park,
which would prohibit exploration for minerals.

But Britain will try to gain support for an environmental protocol.
The Foreign Office said that once the nations had agreed environmental guidelines,
‘we can talk again on the minerals issue’. A spokesman emphasised that Britain
wanted a consensus on the future of Antarctica. ‘There won’t be consensus
on a world park.’

Barry Heywood, the deputy director of the British Antarctic Survey,
said: ‘You have to remember that when negotiations over the convention began,
nine years ago, the world wasn’t as green as it is today.’ There is now
a popular conception ‘that it was a miners’ charter. In fact it wasn’t’.
Heywood said the convention attempted to recognise that ‘mining would take
place in the distant future’ and to regulate it.

Greenpeace said that more than 200 scientists had signed a ‘statement
of concern’ calling for Antarctica to be designated a world park.