Stateless Heritage: The Sealing Sites of the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica

Abstract

By the early nineteenth century the sealing industry, like the closely associated whaling industry, had become a global enterprise. In 1819 sealers discovered the South Shetland Islands, in the Antarctic Peninsular region of Antarctica, and triggered a sealing boom which saw vessels from Britain, the United States of America, Australia, Chile and Argentina landing sealing gangs to gather fur seal pelts and elephant seal oil – the first human activity on the continent. Over the following three summer seasons before seals were driven to near extinction, sealer camp sites were set up on most of the islands making up the South Shetland archipelago. These campsites, consisting of occupied caves and stone-walled shelters, are now being located by archaeological survey and studied through archaeological excavation and recording. While originating mainly from British and American occupation, these sites are not claimed by or protected by those nations – governance in the Antarctic is through the 1958 Antarctic Treaty, which specifically sets aside any national territorial claims while the Treaty is in force. The Antarctic Treaty national parties have tended to ignore the heritage value and conservation needs of these highly important sealing sites for a variety of reasons, including that they reflect a bloody exploitative industry that sits uneasily within the Treaty ideals of Antarctica as a nature reserve dedicated to science and peace, and as such the sealing sites do not advance the unstated nationalistic aspirations of the nations involved.Because of the lack of national interest or responsibility, and the uneasy fit with Antarctic Treaty priorities, the sealing sites have not received sufficient consideration in terms of their protection and conservation. The work of studying the sealing sites has been carried out by university and museum-based archaeological teams (none of which were based in Britain or the USA), and while these have had logistical support from their respective national Antarctic program managers, no nation has proposed that the sites by identified and protected as Antarctic heritage under the provisions of the Antarctic Historic Sites and Monuments (AHSM) system established under the Treaty. Only one site of the over 50 sites so far identified has been entered in the AHSM list, and that is a shipwreck site.The paper looks at how this stateless status originated, how it is perpetuated, and how the Antarctic Treaty system might yet be used to protect and conserve them, along with the other aspects of the natural environment that it protects as heritage without national boundaries.