"Russia, China block move for new Antarctic marine reserves" - anyone know background on this?
"Russia, China block move for new Antarctic marine reserves" - anyone know background on this?
The areas are home to penguins, seals, toothfish, whales and huge numbers of krill – a staple food for many species. Read more at straitstimes.com.
As usual no reasoning was provided as to why Russia and China might block such a motion, the implication being that its because they're evil, hate nature and cute animals, and want to destroy the environment. I'm sure there must be sensible reasons why Russia and China don't want these reserves. Are they proposed for areas which China/Russia have interest in in Antarctica which would limit their operations? What do they do down there anyway? Is the Antarctic a useful surveillance/espionage outpost? Are there nuclear weapons in Antarctica? I have no idea, I'd love if anyone can educate me a bit on Antarctic geopolitics.
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I have no clue either, so I started with the CCAMLR's website, they have all the reports of meetings since 1982. However, the report for the meeting mentioned in the news (June 19-23) isn't available yet.
If you look through the reports from previous years, the relevant information is under the title "Spatial Management">"Review of proposals for new MPAs", or "Marine Protected Areas" for earlier reports. If you want to see what the representatives from each country said, search for "COUNTRY made the following statement".
This is a lot of material to go through, might come back to comment again if I get around to finding out why.
I'd be very interested in your report if you find anything comrade.