Emperor penguins crowd together on the ice in Antartica.

Washington — Native Antarctic animal and plant species will be better protected and the number of tourists to the planet’s southernmost continent will be limited after a two-week meeting in Baltimore of representatives from 28 nations that have ratified the 50-year-old Antarctic Treaty.

The 32nd Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, hosted by the United States April 6–17, took place on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the treaty in 1959 in Washington.

The treaty covers the land area south of 60 degrees south latitude, including ice shelves. Its major provisions outline that the Antarctic will be used only for peaceful purposes, the area will be open to scientific investigation, countries with a scientific presence will share their plans and results, nuclear explosions are prohibited and treaty states will meet periodically.

“We have just completed a very successful meeting,” Evan Bloom, deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs and head of the U.S. delegation to the consultative meeting, said in an April 17 teleconference.

“We started two weeks ago with a ministerial meeting hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” he added. “She emphasized a number of themes, including the importance of polar science, which makes a major contribution to our understanding of climate change.”

In attendance were 400 diplomats; Antarctic program managers and logistics experts; polar scientists from 47 countries, including 28 consultative parties with a scientific presence in the Antarctic; representatives from other entities involved in the Antarctic Treaty system; and observers from several nongovernmental organizations.

RESOLUTIONS

The meeting began April 6 with the first joint session of officials representing the Antarctic Treaty and the Arctic Council, a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses issues faced by Arctic governments and indigenous people.

On that day, the ministers issued two declarations — one supporting polar science and scientific cooperation, the other affirming key elements of the Antarctic Treaty, including provisions that guarantee freedom of scientific investigation and reserving Antarctica exclusively for peaceful purposes.

This NASA satellite composite image shows details hidden from human sight by Antartica's reflective surface.

“The treaty was the first major disarmament treaty of the United States and the Soviet Union,” Tucker Scully, chairman of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, said in the teleconference. “All military and nuclear activities are banned, freedom of scientific research is guaranteed and the treaty sets aside fundamental differences over claims of territorial sovereignty in the Antarctic to allow cooperative research programs and peaceful activities to go forward without encumbrance.”

The Antarctic Treaty also has evolved into a system “that emphasizes environmental protection, resource conservation and cooperation in scientific research,” Scully said. The system has been looking “at some of the major scientific issues facing the world today, including such issues as research on the global climate system.”

FLORA AND FAUNA

During the meeting, the parties agreed by consensus to rules related to tourism, including a prohibition on landings of tourists from ships carrying more than 500 passengers, and a requirement that ships land no more than 100 passengers at a time. The rules will be binding after they are approved by all consultative parties.

The parties also agreed to support efforts at the International Maritime Organization to promote safety of Antarctic shipping, including stronger lifeboat protections for tourist vessels, and to work to protect the entire Antarctic ecosystem.

“The parties completed a major review and amendment to strengthen Annex 2 of the environmental protocol, which deals with protection of native species and native plants in Antarctica,” Scully said in the teleconference. “That was considered one of the significant achievements of the meeting.”

The Antarctic Treaty is augmented by recommendations adopted at consultative meetings, by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, finalized in 1991, and by two conventions dealing with the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (1972) and the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (1980).

The environmental protocol designates Antarctica as a natural reserve devoted to peace and science and establishes principles and rules for human activities in Antarctica, including obligations to set priorities for scientific research.

Next steps in the effort to protect the Antarctic environment include securing approval of the tourism rules among the consultative parties, including the United States, and working with the International Maritime Organization to promote shipping safety.

Consultative parties to the Antarctic Treaty are Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay.

The Antarctic Treaty secretariat is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a secretariat Web site gives consultative party countries a place to exchange information.

More information about the Antarctic Treaty, the Antarctic Treaty secretariat and the Arctic Council is available at the organizations’ Web sites.