Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke is hoping to strengthen the ban on mining in Antarctica. He was joined by former French leader Michel Rocard in Tasmania to persuade more nations to join the mining ban. Michel Rocard is the French ambassador for the polar regions.
The two of them will be putting their weight behind the conservation effort being pushed by the Australian, French and Spanish governments to extend the ban till 2048. These were the founding nations of the Madrid Protocol which banned mining in Antarctica twenty years ago.
The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, was signed on 4 October 1991. It came into effect in 1998 and prohibits mining on the continent for an indefinite period. A review aiming at modifying the prohibition to a ban may take place if enough countries request it.
Mr Hawke was instrumental in bringing the original treaty into effect. He said that mining in Antarctica seemed absurd to him. He added that there was an unequalled opportunity for our scientists to measure the past and the present with a view to protecting the future. And to allow anything to compromise that capacity was, in his view, criminal.
Mr Rocard said that national egotism was still the behavioral rule in the world. He added that the Antarctic Treaty was a good start to begin to say, 'Stop it, and let us be reasonable together'. We can be reasonable, only if we are together, he added.