9781422279267

P olar P olitics Earth’s Next Battleground? E X P L O R I N G T H E P O L A R R E G I O N S T O D AY

BY MICHAEL BURGAN

E X P L O R I N G T H E P O L A R R E G I O N S T O D AY

A ntarctica and the A rctic Facts, Figures, and Stories A ntarctic W ildlife A rctic C ulture The People of the Ice A rctic W ildlife C limate C hange and the P olar R egions O il and G as in the A rctic P olar E xploration Courage and Controversy P olar P olitics Earth’s Next Battlegrounds?

E X P L O R I N G T H E P O L A R R E G I O N S T O D AY P olar P olitics Earth’s Next Battlegrounds?

BY MICHAEL BURGAN

MASON CREST

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C ontents

Introduction................................................................................................... 6 1 Seeking Cooperation.......................................................8 2 Growing Interest in the Arctic..................................... 20 3 Looking at Antarctica.................................................... 36 4 Icy Battlegrounds........................................................... 48 Find Out More........................................................................................... 62

Series Glossary of Key Terms............................................................... 63

Index/Author.............................................................................................. 64

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Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos : Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic mo- ments, and much more!

Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here.

Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains ter- minology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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I ntroduction

Words to Understand commerce  the buying and selling of goods and services indigenous  native to a particular region Norse  the people originally from what is now Norway, Denmark, and Sweden who raided and settled other parts of Europe and Greenland

S tarting in the late 1400s, themost powerful European nations sent explorers around the world, seeking to trade with distant lands and take home valuable natural resources.The era is sometimes called the Age of Exploration, but it was also an age of competition. Over the centuries, the European powers sometimes battled each other as they traded overseas and started colonies. The search for riches led to new European settlements in the Ameri- cas and others parts of the world. At times,that quest also took explorers to Earth’s remote polar regions. Starting in the 16th century, some sea captains sought what was called theNorthwest Passage—a route from the Atlantic Ocean to thePacific through thewaters north of Canada. That route would make it easier to ship goods between

Asia and Europe and perhaps lead to more colonial lands. By the 18th century, the indigenous people of Canada’sArctic,the Inuit,were trading with the English, who later took con- trol of Canada’s extreme north. The HudsonBay Company dominated the commerce in the region. Europeans tradedwith indigenous people frommanyArctic lands.Trade withGreenlandbeganevenbefore the Age of Exploration, thanks to settle- ments started there by Norse sailors from Iceland. Seal and polar bear fur andwalrus ivorywere just some of the Arctic goods that found their way into Europe and parts of Asia. Furs from Russia’sArctic regions were also part of the international trade before the Age of Exploration. At the southern end of Earth, ex- ploration and commerce were more

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Introduction

difficult in the extreme climate of Antarctica.The rush to kill whales and seals on the islands and in the waters around that frozen continent did not begin until the early 19th century. Exploration of Antarctica itself came later in the century. As the whaling industry grew, first Great Britain and then other countries staked claims to parts of the continent. ButAntarctica did not have indigenous people who could take part inmajor trading oper- ations, as was true in the Arctic. And the continent itself did not seem to be a rich source of minerals or other valuable resources. By the end of the 20th century, theArctic lands of the northmade up part of the territory of six different northern nations. By international agreement,on the other hand,Antarc- tica was set aside for scientific study and other peaceful pursuits. But by then, seven nations had claimed parts of the continent for themselves, and others have opened bases there.Even more so than in the past, the world realized that the polar regions, espe- cially the Arctic, contain important natural resources. Climate change, the rising of theworld’s temperatures, is making it easier in some places to access those resources. At the same time, the climate change in the polar regions is affecting sea levels and

weather patterns around the world. TheArctic andAntarctica are not just cold,distant regions of theplanet.They are essential to what will happen on Earth in the decades to come. Amajor question for this century is, will the world’s most powerful na- tions work together while extracting the polar regions’ resources? Can the Arctic nations avoid conflict if they have competing claims to control parts of the region? In the Antarctic, can the cooperation that has developed around scientific research continue? Andanother questionarises:Will com- petition in those regions lead togreater environmental problems? If so, will countries and companies be willing to limit their commercial activities for the sake of the environment?The polar regions are part of the world economy like never before.What does the growing effort to control their resources mean for their future?

Native people living above the Arctic Circle are facing a host of challenges in the coming years, both political and environmental.

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Seeking Cooperation

Words to Understand anthropologist  a scientist who studies how different groups of people live chair  in this sense, the person or group chosen to lead a committee extracting  removing something from where it is found protocol  a document that spells out the details of an international agreement seabed  the bottom of the ocean

T he first indigenous people of the Arctic settled in that cold region perhaps as long as 40,000 years ago in Siberia. From Asia, some groups of people traveled eastward, reaching North America and thenGreenland,while others movedwestward into northern Europe. Wherever the people settled, they hunted to survive. Many of the indigenous people relied on sea mammals, such as walruses, whales, and seals for food. In parts of the Arc- tic, they traded with other indigenous people or foreign nations thousands of miles away. Goods fromAlaska, for example, made their way to China, and items from that nation, such as tea, were sent back to the Arctic.

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Contact with the larger world be- yond theArctic increased as Europeans came to the region.They saw the value of goods that came from the sea mam- mals that were crucial to indigenous life.Whales, for example, were once an important source of oil for lamps,while seals provided fur. Seeking to trade for those goods or hunt the animals them- selves, the Europeans expanded their presence in theArctic.While European rulers set up many colonies in warmer climates, they limited their settlements in the Arctic. Still, they sent explorers and laid claim to lands. Today, defining where theArctic be- gins and ends is not easy, as scientists from different fields define it different ways. But eight nations have some land or water that are part of the region: Canada, theUnited States,Russia,Den- mark (through its control of Greenland), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

Early Conflicts One of the first document-

ed conflicts between the Norse and North American indigenous people took place in Newfound- land. Norse settlers led by Leif Eriksson landed in that part of Canada around 1000. The native peoples, though, were not Inuit, the indigenous people found across Arctic Canada. But a few centuries later, the Arctic did see warfare between the Thule, the ancestors of today’s Inuit, and Eu- ropeans. The fighting took place in Greenland. The Norse had settled there about 20 years before Eriksson reached North America. They established settlements on the southern coast, and in warmer months ventured north to hunt the game that provided the goods to trade with Europe. The Inuit reached Greenland from Canada perhaps 100 years after the Norse arrived. As they moved south, the invading Inuit attacked Norse settlements, which led, in part, to the Norse settlements’ failure.

Some of the Arctic land lies below the Arctic Circle, which is set at 66 degrees North latitude. Russia has the mostArctic territory, controlling almost half of it, followed by Denmark and Canada.

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Seeking Cooperation

The flags of many nations can be seen flying on ships and stations around the Arctic. This is the flag of a ship from Greenland, a territory of Denmark.

Paths to Peaceful Relations Since different countries control parts of the Arctic and differ- ent indigenous people live across the region, they seek ways to cooperate when they can.Themajor organization that addresses possible problems is the Arctic Council. Founded in 1996 by the eight nations listedabove,the council alsohas representatives from

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six organizations that promote the interests of indigenous people across the region. These representatives are called “Permanent Participants.” They can’t vote on issues but they provide the indigenous peoples’ views on them. U.S. anthropologist Anne

The dotted line on this map marks the Arctic Circle, denoting the region north of it as the Arctic itself. The area touches six countries and other territories.

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Seeking Cooperation

Henshaw, who focuses on Arctic peoples, said at a 2016 lecture in Maine that those people “know the region better than anyone on Earth, so I think in terms of informing the kind of science that gets done in the Arctic they’re critical.They’re important also in terms of understanding how the environment’s changing and what it means for people who live there.” Since theArctic is so crucial to world trade and politics, other nations and international groups have what is called observer status.They can send representatives toArctic Council meetings and provide information. The observer countries include the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, and Japan. Observer groups include several environmental organizations and pro- grams set up by the United Nations. The Arctic Council, according to its website, has “a broad mandate to address issues of relevance to the Arctic Region and its peoples.” The member countries of the council rotate every two years as the acting chair of the group. The United States held the chairmanship from 2015 to 2017 and stressed three main topics: improving living conditions for people in Arctic communities, examining issues related to the Arctic Ocean, and addressing the effects of climate change. Larger international agreements also affect relations among theArctic nations and other interested countries.About 60 percent of the Arctic Region is made up of the Arctic Ocean and nearby waters, such as the Bering Sea and parts of the North Atlantic Ocean.After 1982, most of the world’s nations signed the United

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Nations Convention on the Lawof the Sea (UNCLOS),which took effect in 1992.This convention, or agreement, included traditional laws and new agreements on such things as the right to freely use sea routes or to mine minerals on the seabed . (The United States is the onlyArctic nation that has not agreed to UNCLOS.) The convention gives nations a way to work out disagreements over their claims to resources off their coasts, and so applies to the Arctic as well. Discovering the Last Continent Antarctica’s climate is much harsher than the Arctic’s. Antarctica is the planet’s coldest,driest,andwindiest continent.Winds during blizzards can reach 200miles (321 km) per hour, and in some plac- es the ice is more than one mile (1.6 km) thick. During the winter, ice that forms along its coasts nearly doubles the continent’s size. Unlike the Arctic, no one lived in Antarctica before scientists set up research bases there.At one base, the temperature plunged to –129°F (–89.4°C), the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth. The continent is surrounded by the SouthernOcean.As in the Arctic, what scientists consider Antarctica extends beyond the circle named for it,which lies at 66 degrees South latitude. In the 1770s, the British explorer James Cook sailed across theAntarctic Circle, though he never spotted the continent itself. He did see huge icebergs, though,which convinced hima large, frozen land- mass was nearby.A littlemore than 40 years later,Russian captain Thaddeus von Bellinghausen was probably the first European