KING GEORGE ISLAND, Antarctica — More than 30 years before the moratorium on mining in Antarctica is set to expire, countries are quietly positioning themselves for a potential land grab.

* Geobiologist Jeff Marlow traveled to Antarctica during the past two weeks as part of an international expedition exploring conservation and environmental issues, sponsored by BP. In a series of reports for Wired.com, he shares his experience seeing the area first-hand with a number of Antarctic climate, conservation and biology experts. The journey brought a number of issues to the fore, including trash accumulation, ecosystems knocked out of balance by warming temperatures, and simmering political tensions over the region.*Marlow is from Denver and is currently earning a Ph.D. at Imperial College London, working on the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover.

The 1961 Antarctic Treaty stipulates that the continent should be owned by none and open to all for scientific purposes and other peaceful pursuits. The Protocol on Environmental Protection — added to the books in 1991 — banned all mineral exploitation for 50 years.

"The treaty stopped a lot of land claims from being made," said Derek Pieper, a member of our recent scientific expedition to Antarctica. Pieper researches environmental management at Oxford University. "Countries aren’t as aggressive about claiming stuff as they used to be.”

No economically significant mineral deposits have yet been found on Antarctica, largely because more than 97 percent of it is covered with ice. But more than 500 million years ago, it was part of a supercontinent known as Gondwana that also included modern-day South America, Australia and Africa which are rich in copper, diamonds, gold and coal, so Antarctica has potential.

Forty-seven nations have signed on to the Antarctic Treaty, and it is often regarded as one of the more effective works of international law. But subtle maneuverings for territory and economic stakes predate any cooperative framework. The United Kingdom claimed a slice of the continent in 1908, and New Zealand, France, Australia, Norway, Chile and Argentina followed suit in the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. Chile and Argentina remain most vociferous about their overlapping claims. In both countries, it is illegal to display a map not showing the nation’s claimed Antarctic territory.

Approaching King George Island is like driving into the fluorescent anomaly that is Las Vegas: The island is overdeveloped and overrun with human activity in an environment that has no business supporting human enterprise.

The 500-square-mile piece of black rock is home to stations from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, South Korea, Poland, Russia, Uruguay, the Netherlands, Ecuador, Germany, Peru and the United States. Of course, this sprawl is on a much tamer, Antarctic scale, and no one is going to confuse the island with Sin City. But the trends of settlement do raise important issues that concern the very future of Antarctica.

Today, it’s easy to get the feeling that the bases on King George Island remain slightly superficial. The island is the most accessible part of greater Antarctica, remaining ice-free for most of the year. This geographical factor affords nations the opportunity to construct permanent stations and thereby become full members of the Antarctic Treaty, a privilege that involves them in the decision-making process.

A cynic could justifiably see opportunistic nations positioning themselves for a potential land grab if the mining moratorium were to expire in 2041. Despite the "scientific" purposes of the stations, for example, it took the Chilean Frei station 26 years to employ a full-time scientist, and Russia’s Bellingshausen station, with a capacity of 50 people, has just one scientist.

Meanwhile, several of the stations have gone out of their way to promote civic life, hoping to further legitimize their territorial claims by exerting their cultures on King George Island settlements.

The Polish Henryk Arctowski station used to welcome female visitors with flowers grown in an on-site greenhouse, before bureaucratic obstacles got in the way. China’s Chang Cheng Station was inaugurated with a "dove of peace" ritual in which hundreds of Chinese pigeons were released, nearly all of which froze to death within hours.

Perhaps the boldest move in civil society development came in 2004, when a prefabricated Russian Orthodox church was shipped in pieces from Siberia to Bellingshausen station on King George Island. Today, the onion-domed church overlooks Maxwell Bay, standing in stark contrast to the tuna-can abodes of other inhabitants.

There is certainly an impressive amount of great science being done in Antarctica, but many of the bases on the island are more settlements than research stations. And through the quiet development of civil life on the island, battle lines for the future are already being drawn.

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See Also:- Report From Antarctica: Heaps of Trash or Historical Treasure?

Image 1: Overlooking Bellingshausen, where many nations operate ostensible research stations. Photo: Jeff Marlow.

Image 2: The Russian Orthodox church, a manifestation of advancing civil society on King George Island. Photo: Jeff Marlow.