Britain plans to submit a claim to the United Nations to extend its Antarctic territory by a million square kilometres, the foreign office said on Wednesday.The claim is one of five territorial requests planned by the Britain ahead of a May 2009 deadline and covers a vast area of the seabed around British Antarctica near the south pole, a spokesperson said."We are one of many coastal states who are submitting various claims," she told Reuters.She said the four other claims would be for Atlantic seabed territory around South Georgia and the Falkland Islands, around Ascension Island, near the Bay of Biscay in the south-west Atlantic, and in the Hatton-Rockall basin off Scotland's coast.The claim to extend British sovereignty in Antarctica could spark disputes with South American nations such as Argentina and Chile, who are likely to make overlapping claims in the region.
Environmental groups yesterday condemned British plans to claim sovereignty over a vast tract of the seabed off the coast of Antarctica, with Greenpeace and WWF expressing dismay that the Foreign Office was contemplating possible oil, gas and mineral exploration in the region.The Guardian yesterday revealed that the Foreign Office was preparing to submit a rights claim to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf (CLCS) for 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) of seabed off the coast of the British Antarctic Territory. Any claim, it is alleged, could threaten the stability of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which froze territorial disputes on the world's least explored continent. Drilling for oil or gas would disrupt the fragile marine ecology of the Southern Ocean, environmentalists warn.Simon Walmsley, head of WWF-UK's marine programme, insisted: "There should be no oil or gas exploitation in Antarctica. It's such a fragile habitat. Some of the sea creatures there are killed by a rise in temperature of merely 1.1C. It would be a body blow for the whole region.
Environmental groups yesterday condemned British plans to claim sovereignty over a vast tract of the seabed off the coast of Antarctica, with Greenpeace and WWF expressing dismay that the Foreign Office was contemplating possible oil, gas and mineral exploration in the region.
The Guardian yesterday revealed that the Foreign Office was preparing to submit a rights claim to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf (CLCS) for 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) of seabed off the coast of the British Antarctic Territory.
Any claim, it is alleged, could threaten the stability of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which froze territorial disputes on the world's least explored continent. Drilling for oil or gas would disrupt the fragile marine ecology of the Southern Ocean, environmentalists warn.
Simon Walmsley, head of WWF-UK's marine programme, insisted: "There should be no oil or gas exploitation in Antarctica. It's such a fragile habitat. Some of the sea creatures there are killed by a rise in temperature of merely 1.1C. It would be a body blow for the whole region.
