World Park Base - Definition and Overview

World Park Base was a non-governmental year-round Antarctic base located on Ross Island in Ross Dependency.

The international environmental organization Greenpeace established World Park Base in 1987 in order to press its demand for the Antarctic Treaty nations to declare all of the continent of Antarctica a World Park. This would make the entire continent off-limits to commercial exploitation and pollution, and only permit limited scientific research.

This base prided itself on 'setting a good example' for the other bases, by such means as removing all of its refuse from Antarctica, unlike nearby McMurdo Station for example, which simply dumps its untreated refuse and garbage into the sea. Greenpeace's exposing of such environmental damage by the 'official' research bases has caused a high level of embarassment for the nations responsible, given the Antarctic Treaty's conservation articles.

The official attitude amongst the Antarctic Treaty nations was that World Park Base was to be ignored and that no assistance be given to it, although New Zealand, which claims jurisdiction over Ross Dependency, would have assisted if a life-threatening situation arose.

Greenpeace closed down and completely dismantled the base in 1992.

links

http://archive.greenpeace.org/gopher/campaigns/landecol/1994/antarc4.txt

http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/climate/polartour/pt01.html