Latin America and Antarctica: New Approaches to Humanities and Social Science Scholarship

HOWKINS, ADRIAN; LORENZO, CRISTIAN

The Polar Journal

Taylor & Francis Online

Lugar: Christchurch; Año: 2019 vol. 9 p. 279 - 285

2154-8978

Latin America is a region with extensive connections toAntarctica.  Argentina and Chile areclaimant nations, and both are original signatories of the 1959 AntarcticTreaty.   Largely as a result ofArgentine and Chilean participation in its negotiation, Spanish is one of thefour official languages of the Antarctic Treaty.  Since 2004, the Antarctic Treaty Secretariathas been located in Argentina?s capital, Buenos Aires.  Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay have allbecome consultative members of the Antarctic Treaty through conducting sciencein Antarctica and contributing to the Antarctic community, and Colombia, Cuba,Guatemala, and Venezuela are non-consultative members.  All six Latin American consultative membersare also members of the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs(COMNAP), and all six belong to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research(SCAR).   Although Ecuador is not asignatory of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine LivingResources (CCAMLR), the other five Latin American consultative members havesigned up to this convention, as has Panama.  According to COMNAP, there were 27 Latin American stations in Antarcticain 2017 (Argentina with 13, Chile with 9, Uruguay with 2, Brazil, Ecuador, andPeru all with 1).  The rapidly expandingAntarctic tourist industry is centred in the gateway cities of Ushuaia(Argentina) and Punta Arenas (Chile).  More intangibly, a strong Antarctic consciousness can be found in someof the countries of Latin America, especially in the claimant states of Chileand Argentina.