Written by: Sanjay Puri - 23058, Grade XII
Posted on: 10 February, 2023
Antarctica is the only continent of our world which has no human settlement at all. There are few stations constructed by different countries for research purposes and some researchers and scientists are living on the continent currently but it still cannot be considered as a human settlement.
Many of us might think that there is no politics here on this continent of Antarctica but it is not correct as shown in the map above. Some of the countries have claimed various parts of the land to be their countries’ parts as they believe that the land of Antarctica was found firstly by their countrymen. Australia has claimed the largest part of land. Some countries like Australia, Norway, New Zealand, Great Britain, Chile and Argentina have claimed lands likewise. The interesting fact is that Australia, Norway and New Zealand recognize each other's claims but Great Britain, Chile and Argentina don't recognize each other's claims because these three countries' claims coincide with each other.
The US stated that Antarctica is a free continent and no one can lay their claims on the lands of Antarctica and the US has also compelled all the countries to claim the land of Antarctica to sign a temporary treaty which is valid till 2048 to protect the nature of Antarctica. It is found from research that approximately 21 billion metric tons of organic compounds can be found under the land of Antarctica. So, it is pretty sure that the countries who claim the lands of Antarctica might have started to dig and tried to take out the gas from the grounds of Antarctica which would have surely ruined the nature of Antarctica.
So, it was really a good decision from the US to compel the countries who claimed the lands of Antarctica to sign a treaty to temporarily remove their claim from Antarctica till 2048. But after 2048, the countries claiming lands of Antarctica might try to take out gas from lands of Antarctica in the greed of money. In conclusion, claiming lands of Antarctica is not valid at all because Antarctica is the only continent with no human settlement and Antarctica must only be used for research purposes by countries all over the world.
