Britain plans to claim rights over large areas of Antarctic seabed
Despite the fact that it is a signatory of the 1959 Antarctic treaty, which stipulates that no new claims shall be made over any land in the Arctic, the Foreign Office has revealed that Britain has made plans to extend its rights to oil, gas and mineral exploitation up to 350 miles offshore into the Southern ocean. A good proportion of the resources which Britain plans to extract from the Antarctic are yet to reach levels shallow enough for them to be mined, but fears nevertheless abound regarding the possibly detrimental impact which Britain's proposed move will have on the environment.
This proposal comes at the same time as WWF are calling for areas of the Antarctic to be turned into marine reserves in order to protect endangered species.
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