Around 350 BC, The great philosopher Aristotle was among the first person to say that Earth was not flat, It’s spherical. At that time, Greeks only knew about the arctic region in North. They named that region the Arctos. The name Arctos was derived from the constellation of the ‘Bear’. Because they were aware of the fact that Earth is spherical, they knew that North and South are same which means they might have same features. So they named the opposite region, Antarctos. It means antithetic to the bear And from here, the name of our seventh continent was derived. Hundreds of years before the 1890s when the first human footprints were made on Antarctica, Antarctica began to show up on maps. When some voyager went on voyage, they were aware that if they travelled to the southern hemisphere, they might come upon some land. But they didn’t know anything about that land i.e size of that land or what existed there, etc. For this reason, in the year 1530, French explorers drew Antarctica on a map of the world.

James Cook, a British naval officer, was the first to travel south of the Antarctic Circle in 1773.

About 50 years after that, first steps of humans were taken on Antarctica. But it is still a matter of controversy that, who had taken the first steps on Antarctica because many people title that they were the one who had taken the first steps on Antarctica.

After this, the early years of 1900s came to be called as the heroic era of Antarctica. Many researches were done on Antarctica and many new discoveries were made. After this heroic era, Following this moment of bravery, Antarctica entered a period of colonization. Several countries made efforts to acquire Antarctica. Seven nations asserted dominance over this continent between 1908 and 1942. Argentina, Australia, Chile, france, Norway, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom were the nations.

Aside from them, nations including the United States of America, the Soviet Union, Japan, Sweden, Belgium, and Germany were also conducting explorations and fresh expeditions to Antarctica without claiming any land. These nations began competing over their claims to Antarctica following World War 2.

Fighting in this context refers to making their points more forcefully rather than engaging in actual combat.

Treaties and Conventions:

• The Antarctica Treaty -

In 1958, Mr. Eisenhower, the president of America, issued a notice to rest of the nations calling for a treaty to guarantee that Antarctica would forever be a free and peaceful place. On October 15th, 1959 in Washington a meeting was held about this issue. And on December 1st, 1959 the Antarctica Treaty was signed. After 2003, a physical existence of Antarctica Treaty was also established. Later on, its headquarter was established in Buenos Aries , Argentina. This agreement’s three main points were as follows: Firstly, Antarctica would be a peaceful place and used only for peaceful intentions, Secondly, All the nations are allowed to carry any expeditions and are free to do any scientific research on Antarctica, and Lastly, The results of the scientific discoveries and investigations are accessible to all. At first, this treaty was agreed by twelve countries only, including all those countries which were fighting for Antarctica. But the most fascinating thing about this treaty is that this treaty only suspended the claims of these countries, this treaty did not abolish these claims. This treaty/written agreement will expire in 2048. After that, this treaty would be revived or not, that will have to be seen. But thanks to this treaty, today no geopolitics has been played on Antarctica. In the present, Antarctica is a peaceful place because of this treaty only. This treaty benefited scientists hugely as now they can freely do researches in Continent. It is interesting to know about the part of India in this content. At first, India was not in the favour of this treaty because Indian government thought that this agreement is the strategy of these nations to acquire the continent. India requested to the UN to acquire Antarctica. However, the UN did not agreed to this. After this, In 1981, In the month of December, India had sent there first team on expedition their. In 1983, the non-aligned nations pressurized the UN so much that eventually the UN had to profess and agreed to talk on the topic of the Antarctica in the next sitting.India ratified the pact and submitted an application for consultative party status about a month before the meeting. For the other nations, this was somewhat shocking because India had previously opposed the Antarctic Treaty.

• Environmental Protection Treaty of Antarctica, 1991 -

This treaty was signed in the year 1991. Because it was signed in Madrid, the Spanish capital, this agreement is also known as the Madrid Protocol. This agreement prohibits all nations from drilling or mining in Antarctica; it was made in order to safeguard Antarctica. Because many nations are scavengers when it comes to oil. Under the semblance of oil many areas have been annihilated. In a survey from 1992, 19 billions barrels of oil can be extracted from underneaths of Antarctica. And mineral experts from Russia claimed that there are 500 billion barrels of oil underneath the Antarctica. But there are two major reasons why this oil is not extracted till now. First: Thanks to Madrid Protocol, this treaty didn’t allow any nation to do any type of mining and drilling and Second: In today’s scenario it is very expensive to do so because technology is not that advanced till now to extract oils from Antarctica. But in upcoming future with the advancement of technology and melting of ice due to temperature change, Antarctica becomes easily accessible. If this treaty expires in future and is not renewed by the nations than this would be doable after that.

Various countries have also started fishing in Antarctica which is leading to the exploitation of the Antarctica’s oceans as well. For instance, China, It has recently expanded tourism aInd fishing in Antarctica. Apart from this, according to the study from the year 2018, Wealthy individuals travelled to mainland Antarctica with their luxury yachts and unlawfully plundered the environment there.

In my opinion, a new convention should be established to regulate activities and prevent overfishing in the oceans surrounding Antarctica. Additionally, to prevent unauthorized ocean entry and to establish the ocean as a protected region.

• Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals, 1972 -

Recognizing the need for comprehensive conservation measures as a result of the widespread concern regarding the exposure of Antarctic seals to commercial exploitation;

Recognizing that the Antarctic seals are an essential living resource in the marine surroundings of Antarctica which needs an global agreement for its efficacious conservation;

Acknowledge that any harvesting should be managed to prevent going over the levels of the best sustainable yield in order to prevent over exploitation which may led to the depletion of this resource;

Recognizing that in order to ameliorate scientific understanding and thereby rationalize exploitation, every effort should be made to promote biological and other research on Antarctic seal populations as well as to gather data from such research and from statistics of upcoming sealing operations, allowing for the development of further appropriate regulations;

Noting that the SCAR is consenting to carry out the tasks requested of it in this Convention;

Wishing to further and fulfil the goals of Antarctic seal protection, scientific research, and responsible use, as well as to keep an adequate ecological balance,

Nations have agreed to the some points like this convention applies to 60deg. South Latitude to the seas of south, this convention may applicable to some specific seal population on Antarctica and species of seals discussed in convention shall not be killed or captured within the area discussed in this Convention, etc.

• Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources -

As a component of the Antarctic Treaty System, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources entered into force in 1982. It was created primarily in reaction to worries that an increase in krill captures in the Southern Ocean might have a negative impact on krill populations and other marine species, especially on birds, seals, and fish, which rely heavily on krill for feeding.

The Convention's goal is to protect marine life. This does not preclude harvesting as long as it is done in a sensible way. The Southern Ocean Marine Living Resource Management Convention establishes a Commission and a Scientific Committee to collaborate on resource management.

The Antarctic Convergence, which is created when the icy Antarctic seas converge with the milder waters to the north, clearly defines the boundary of the Southern Ocean, which completely envelops the Antarctica. The Southern Ocean is essentially a closed ecosystem because of the Antarctic Convergence's role as a biological barrier.

Fisheries regulation now takes a "ecosystem approach," which was pioneered by the CCAMLR and its Scientific Committee. An ecosystem strategy tries to prevent circumstances in which fisheries have a major negative impact on "dependent and related species" in addition to focusing on the species targeted for fishing. The CCAMLR must create management strategies that evaluate the condition and health of the environment. The challenge of accurately portraying the complete complexity of marine ecosystems has been taken up by CCAMLR in the use of this ecosystem methodology.

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Reference: 

• Aristotle is a Greek philosopher
• Opposite of the bear
• Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina
• United Nations
• Scientific Committee on Antarctica Research
• Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources