Antarctica is like no place on Earth.
The “White Continent” has lured explorers and scientists to its stunning, ice-encrusted landscape for two centuries. Countries have tried to carve up Antarctica and lay claim, but no one owns it.
For 65 years, Antarctica — which is one and a half times the size of Canada — has been governed by a treaty of nations. But with rising geopolitical tensions and a shifting world order, that governance system is now under pressure.
“The Antarctic Treaty is under considerable stress and strain, probably entering the worst period it’s ever experienced,” said Klaus Dodds, a professor at Royal Holloway College, University of London.
Forged by 12 nations at the height of the Cold War, the Antarctic Treaty froze any countries’ claims to territory and preserved the continent for “science and peace.”
“The Antarctic Treaty, first and foremost, is an arms control treaty,” said Dodds, a political geographer with expertise in the Antarctic. He said the treaty was “incredibly important” because “it declared the Antarctic continent and surrounding ocean a nuclear weapons-free zone.”
Remarkably, for more than six decades, the treaty has mainly worked. But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and U.S. President Donald Trump’s increased deference toward Moscow, consensus among the treaty members is becoming harder to forge.
“Before the full invasion of Ukraine by Russia, there was a certain amount of co-operation among key states,” said Evan Bloom, formerly the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for the Arctic and Antarctica. “There is less co-operation now in both [the North and South] poles.”
“Until maybe just a few years ago, we talked about the Arctic as a place of relative stability, and the Antarctic Treaty as a framework for peace and stability. Now, both of those assumptions are being challenged,” said David Hik, chief scientist at Polar Knowledge Canada, during an interview in Punta Arenas, where Canada recently signed an agreement with Chile to strengthen Antarctic collaboration.
First all-Canadian Antarctic mission
More than 16,000 kilometres from Canada, Antarctica plays a critical role in regulating the world’s climate and helping to slow global warming. Yet it is already undergoing massive change, including record-high temperatures and record-low ice levels.
The Canadian Navy’s HMCS Margaret Brooke, an Arctic and offshore patrol vessel, sailed into Antarctica last weekend for an unprecedented mission, supporting a team of 15 Canadian scientists for two weeks of research.
The navy is under strict conditions on how it operates inside the 60th parallel south, a circular latitude that includes the Southern Ocean and the South Pole. The Antarctic Treaty forbids any military activity outside of assisting scientific exploration or operations at research stations.
“We don’t have any aspect of sovereignty in Antarctica. That’s not at all our mandate here,” said Teri Share, commanding officer on HMCS Margaret Brooke.
“We’ve done everything possible, basically short of painting the ship white and red, to really make sure we’re seen as collaborative and helping to support the science piece, and not at all down here as a quote-unquote warship.”
There’s no settlement in Antarctica outside science bases. Any nation’s political weight there is measured by its science footprint. More than 40 countries operate research stations and summer camps.
The U.S. has by far the largest footprint, with the McMurdo Research Station in the Ross Sea region, plus two other permanent bases, one right at the South Pole. The U.K., Australia, Germany and Japan have robust Antarctic programs as well.
Russia has five permanent smaller bases and a handful of summer camps. China has made clear its ambition to invest more in the Antarctic, building out a new modern base, Quinling — its third year-round station, alongside two seasonal stations.
“It’s worth remembering there’s a reason why China has established five Antarctic stations. It is preparing itself, like Russia, to potentially claim [territory] if it had to or thought it was advantageous,” said Klaus Dodds.
Even Iran has shown interest in the southern pole region. In a 2023 interview on Iranian state-controlled media, the commander of the Iranian Navy, Rear Admiral Shahram Irani, said that his country planned to build a permanent base there, saying, “it is not only military work but also scientific work that needs to be carried out.”
Military activity prohibited
Since its signing in 1959 in Washington, D.C., the Antarctic Treaty’s governance has survived. But there are new concerns that technologies at some of the research bases in the strategic southern pole region have a dual use for scientific and military purposes.
“Countries are trying to figure out whether any of that is going on,” said Bloom, who is now a global fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
The Antarctic Treaty bans military activity except in support of science, and a related protocol on environmental protection signed in 1991 prohibits exploration for minerals.
“There’s … a question about whether demilitarization will hold for the future and whether the mining ban will hold,” said Bloom. “Right now they are, and that is a very good thing.”
Yet the outlook appears tenuous, especially with cuts to funding at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), which supports Antarctic research. Managers have been fired — part of Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts — including one senior manager returning from her regular month-long work visits to McMurdo Station.
Scientists currently working at the U.S. stations worry the Trump administration will slash more staff and support, especially as much of their work addresses global warming, which the Trump team has denigrated.
Others have questioned the logic of pulling resources from Antarctica, given the increasing strategic value of maintaining a presence on the continent.
Competition over krill
Tension is also building over fishing rights set out in a related treaty governed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).
At a CCAMLR meeting in Australia last October, China blocked the extension of existing management measures for Antarctic krill, a key part of the Southern Ocean food web.
Norway, China and South Korea are currently the top harvesters of Antarctic krill.
Russia and China have vetoed additional Marine Protected Areas, the last of which was agreed to in 2014. Only five per cent of the Southern Ocean is currently protected.
“Countries like China and Russia [are] absolutely determined to make the pursuit of marine conservation as difficult as possible on the one hand and on the other hand, hell bent on absolutely asserting their right to fish in areas that I would argue are incredibly precious in terms of marine biodiversity,” said Dodds.
Quota limits are not being breached, but the krill industry is growing, with Norway and China building new, high-tech boats that use continuous pumping technology to almost quadruple what a traditional vessel can harvest, says Lynda Goldsworthy, a research associate at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies.
“China has made it very clear, as is their right, that they wish to be more influential within the Antarctic Treaty system,” said Goldsworthy.
“They don’t know where they want to go and how big they want this to be. So they’re trying to block anything that will stop them from doing that in the future.”
Canadian scientists collected samples of seawater and sediment from Admiralty Bay, Antarctica in hope of learning more about our changing climate, as part of a mission aboard HMCS Margaret Brooke.
‘We need to do something to preserve this’
Political tensions are also stepping on Canada’s ambition within the Antarctic Treaty system. It signed on to the treaty in 1988, but it wants to elevate its power to be a voting member, a so-called consultative party.
That is being blocked, says Dodds.
“The last three or four years, Canada’s claim to be a consultative party has been blocked, first and foremost by Russia,” he said. That’s because Russia wants its ally Belarus to be made a consultative party alongside Canada, and the decision has to be consensual.
“Canada publishes more scientific work on the Antarctic than about two-thirds of the consultative parties. So, to my mind, it’s an absolute travesty of justice that Canada is not a consultative party,” said Dodds.
The all-Canadian expedition to Antarctica this month is part of an effort to build up Canada’s science diplomacy in the region, even though it doesn’t operate its own research station, collaborating instead with scientists from other countries.
The science team aboard HMCS Margaret Brooke was invited to visit the Brazilian research station on King George Island, which is studying climate change on the continent.
“We are interested in glacier retreat, because we have a lot of retreat here,” said Monica Petti, a Brazilian biologist working at the Brazilian station.
“When you come to Antarctica and see how beautiful it is, the feeling is we need to do something to preserve this,” she said.
“Our world is crazy these days. I think the Antarctica Treaty is a good example that it can work. With peace and science, we can live a better way.”
