The evolution of wilderness protection within the ATS and its main motivations

Although the first explicit legal reference to the term “wilderness” within the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) appeared only in the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (CRAMRA), which had been adopted in 1988, legal measures to protect the region’s wilderness values have been taken quite earlier. Thus, for example, measures to preserve and conserve living resources in Antarctica, as laid down by Article IX (1) of the Antarctic Treaty (AT), such as the “Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora” of 1964, or the designation of Specially Protected Areas (SPAs) in the following years, provide evidence of these early acknowledgements of wilderness values by Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties (ATCPs).
The planned paper will provide an overview of the evolvement of wilderness protection in Antarctica from a legal point of view, and by doing so; argue that the valuation of wilderness qualities has been a common concern of ATCPs since the beginning of the operating ATS. At the same time, the paper will explore why it is important to have a good understanding of the extent to which wilderness has received attention in the ATS since the adoption of the AT.