Save The Huts: "Once lost, they are gone forever."

 

The Antarctic Treaty, under the Madrid Protocol, provides for the extensive protection of environmentally sensitive sites in the Antarctic. The Protected Area System defines the process for the designation of Historic Sites and Monuments under the Treaty mechanism. The purpose of this designation is to preserve and to protect from damage, historic sites and monuments within the Antarctic Treaty area.

Annex V to the Protocol on Environmental protection to the Antarctic Treaty Area Protection and Management (Article 8) states:

Historic Sites and Monuments

1 Sites or monuments of recognised historic value which have been designated as Antarctic Specially Protected Areas or Antarctic Specially Managed Areas, or which are located within such Areas, shall be listed as Historic Sites and Monuments.

2 Any Party may propose a site or monument of recognised historic value which has not been designated as an Antarctic Specially Protected Area or an Antarctic Specially Managed Area, or which is not located within such an Area, for listing as a Historic Site or Monument. The proposal for listing may be approved by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties by a measure adopted at an Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in accordance with Article IX(1) of the Antarctic Treaty. Unless the measure specifies otherwise, the proposal shall be deemed to have been approved 90 days after the close of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting at which it was adopted, unless one or more of the Consultative Parties notifies the Depository, within that time period, that it wishes an extension of that period or is unable to approve the measure.

3 Existing Historic Sites and Monuments which have been listed as such by previous Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings shall be included in the list of Historic Sites and Monuments under this Article.

4 Listed Historic Sites and Monuments shall not be damaged, removed or destroyed.

5 The list of Historic Sites and Monuments may be amended in accordance with paragraph 2 above. The Depository shall maintain a list of current Historic Sites and Monuments.

The Heroic Age huts of the Antarctic are all listed as historic sites and monuments under these terms.

As such, it is illegal to damage, remove or destroy the sites.

The Antarctic Heritage Trust has been granted the appropriate permissions to execute the Conservation plans to the Ross Sea Huts by the New Zealand Government, under the terms of the Treaty.

Since these plans both damage the huts, by removing complex historical layering from the sites - and in particular at Cape Royds - and destroy the sites in any meaningful sense as time capsules (which is the reason for their historic importance) - both the Antarctic Heritage Trust and the New Zealand Government would appear to be in direct breach of the Madrid protocol of the Antarctic treaty.

Under the terms of the Treaty, they should, therefore, be prosecuted.

However, such a course of action is unlikely, as it would cause too many difficulties for the small cadre of international diplomats that rule Antarctica, representing an unforgivable failure of the Antarctic Treaty mechanism.