sum-up of Antarctic activities in 2023

2023 is soon drawing to close and it is time to look back to the year of Antarctic activities as well. It is probably right to say that the less is published on the blog, the more is going on, as all the energy goes to the world outside the www.

In May and early June this year, I had the honour to participate in the Estonian delegation to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) held in Helsinki. From the same month I serve also as the Estonian contact point to the Antarctic Treaty.

Antarctic Treaty meetings are prime scientific diplomacy, so researchers have also been present at its diplomatic meetings, but it was a pleasure to see Estonia re-emerge at the ATCMs and signal that we are still committed to and interested in rules-based international order and environmental protection of the Antarctic environment. One of the important messages that Helsinki ATCM tried to signal was the urgency of climate change in Antarctica and the fact that what happens in Antarctica impacts the entire world, and it felt good to see that much of the research that we have been doing is relevant this global diplomatic system. Also, after all these years of going through tens and thousands of documents from and about the ATCMs in all imaginable archives around the globe, it felt really nice to see this system in action.

Climate Change and Cultural Heritage in Antarctica, XXV Science Afternoon of the U.S. Embassy in Estonia and the Estonian Academy of Sciences "Polar Research in Estonia" held on September 20, 2023

Estonia is a non-consultative member of the Antarctic Treaty, but has not ratified the Environmental Protocol yet. To draw attention to the polar research in Estonia and remind the decision-makers of the necessity to join the Environmental Protocol in order to be able to partake in the decision-making in Antarctica, the Estonian Academy of Sciences and the Embassy of United States of America in Estonia organised XXV Science Afternoon,"Polar Research in Estonia" on September 20, 2023.

You should be able to come to my talk by clicking on the picture. Polar science is by its nature big science, requiring big infrastructure and big money - things that Estonia does not have much of. Transition from being a part of Soviet Union’s Antarctic program with bottomless resources and from the optimistic economic growth of the early 2000s has not been painless. In short-term project-based international science where most of Estonian scientists need to work with time-limited grants in other countries’ programs to be able to do Antarctic science, it is hard to foster the next generation of Antarctic scientists and to even say where Estonian Antarctic science ends and others’ starts. None of my work would have been possible without the scholars in Argentina and Sweden whom I work with. However, conscious efforts in fostering a new generation is something that the Polar Research Committee of the Estonian Academy of Sciences will need to work with in the coming years.

Presenting the role of environmental NGOs in Antarctic mineral negotiations at the SCAR Standing Committee on Antarctic Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS) conference in Lisbon as well as the European Society of Environmental History biannual conference in Bern almost feel like non-events in this line but were very giving. Another talk that gave me a lot of joy was a presentation in Swedish at the S A Andrées Polardagar at Grenna Museum and Polar Centre. It is not that often I get to speak to the Swedish audience outside the university and it feels good to give back to the people whose taxes have financed my research for many years. On the request of the tireless Håkan Joriksson who runs the museum and the polar days, I spoke on the past, present and future of the Antarctic Treaty to a very passionate crowd of Antarctic aficionados.

Public seminar on the history of epidemics at Estonian National Museum & Postimees

In the beginning of June I had the honour to speak at the Estonian National Museum at their public lecture day on epidemics, Jumala viha ja juudasitt. The public symposium was connected to the part of the permanent exhibition that speaks of health and disease in Estonian environmental history, which I once upon a time curated together with Liisi Jääts and the rest of the Estonian Centre for Environmental History, KAJAK. The epidemics section has for obvious reasons become popular over the last 1,5 years (I wrote about it once before), but 2021 was also 165 years from the first valioration in Tartu and 10 years from founding KAJAK, so the symposium was very timely. Apart from myself, the speakers lineup included soon-to-be president of Estonia but then the director of the Estonian National Museum, Alar Karis, curator of the environmental history section of the exhibition, Liisi Jääts, as well as Lea Leppik, Reet Hiiemäe and Ken Kalling - all researchers who have dedicated a considerable amount of their careers to studying Estonian medical history.

While we did quite extensive background research into different disease statistics, epidemics, treatment methods and public health campaigns on Estonian territory for the exhibition, I do not consider myself a major specialist in the field. My talk was more about wider history of ideas concerning disease and treatment which also provides the narrative roadmap for the exhibition from the folkloric disease conception, God’s will or miasmas to pathogen-based health care with sterilisation as an ideal. It also served as a popular reminder of how common epidemics have been here and how little traditional great herbalists could help in the event of an epidemic. Something which is increasingly forgotten, particularly among the new spirituality seekers. I also concentrated on the difference between biomedical, phenomenological and social definition of disease and the impact that the discrepancy between the three may have on how people react vis-a-vis epidemics and public health measures.

The talk and in fact the whole symposium can be watched at the website of the Estonian National Museum and parts of it were published in the Estonian daily Postimees. Which parts, I do not really know because the published version is behind the paywall and the public part includes the end of the manuscript I sent in. At least this time the title was not changed beyond recognition!

Public symposium on epidemic in Estonian history at Estonian National Museum.

Speaking on Antarctic heritage at First Argentine Days of Antarctic Humanities and Social Sciences

On 21-23 of April, the Argentine Antarctic Institute and Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego held an online conference - the First Days of Antarctic Humanities and Social Sciences. The conference was held in Spanish and its three days were packed with presentations of all possible topics on Antarctica and Argentine Sub-Antarctic. First intended to be a hybrid event, it had to be taken fully online because of the COVID situation. This was surely lamentable for all of the local participants who would have loved to meet and chat, but made participation certainly easier and more giving to those joining from distance. There were quite many foreigners, but as always, when joining any of the national Antarctic events, I must but lament that so much of this research never reaches scholars in other languages. Almost endemic nationalism of the research about this international and multinational continent is quite lamentable. At all conferences can some works be more intellectually sophisticated and some others more dedicated to searching for elusive details of some old expedition. Not all academic cultures are equally comfortable with high theory and politics which is the dominant Angloamerican mode of academic writing. But it is always valuable knowledge and I feel sometimes truly sorry that not many other people than me can with ease participate at Spanish, Russian, English, Japanese and Scandinavian conferences. Polish, Chinese, French and German are unfortunately off limits for me so far, even if I can figure out quite a bit in written documents in these languages.

This time I presented the work we have done over the last years in the Creating Antarctic Heritage project in tracing the birth of the Historic Sites and Monuments instrument of the Antarctic Treaty, based on the archival evidence from New Zealand (thanks to Bob Frame!), and the documents I’ve collected from Chile, UK and, most importantly, Japan, where the first List was consolidated. Several important discussions appear in the documents: How old is a historic site and monument? How should they be called (what is a vestige?!!!)? How much of the monuments must be preserved to merit inclusion? And can refuges be listed as historic sites and monuments? And of course, when all complicated political hurdles have been passed and the list is ready to be approved, Antarctic Treaty does what it is best at: gets stuck with one insignificant word that has nothing to do with the heritage instrument itself and puts the whole instrument in danger. This time, in. 1970, the word was ‘DDR’ which US could not accept in the documents and Soviet Union refused to remove.

Those who speak Spanish, can listen to the presentation on youtube through the link below. I have to say that one of the hardest moments in working with transnational methodology is deciding how many juicy and rude comments from internal documents should one disclose? I am probably the least diplomatic person ever, but nevertheless feel that if I want to gain the confidence of the diplomatic archives, it is probably best not to quote these statements word for word. Believe me, sometimes this is hard.

Presenting in "Petersburg" today: Polar readings 2020

Together with Tayana Arkachaa, I will be presenting “Who Wants the krill “Schnitzel”? Researching and Using Krill in Soviet Union and Japan” at the Polar Readings conference today. The conference was supposed to take place in St Petersburg between May 18-21, and was now taken online. Alas, the duration of the talk was reduced from 20 to 10 minutes together with the digitalisation of the conference, so Tayana gets to do the speaking in Russian. The conference is also streamed on YouTube, through the next three days. Tayana and I will present today at 13.00 Moscow time.

The contents we can cover in such a short time will inevitably be very limited but it has nevertheless served me to dig into my krill materials. The title alludes in fact to the Polish campaign of developing krill schnitzel, whereas nothing so spectacular was ever produced in the Soviet Union or Japan. However, looking closer at the numbers of krill fishing, I was struck again by the deeply ingrained racism in the discourse around Antarctica. From time to time, articles like this warn us against Russian and yellow peril in Antarctica. What is typical of texts like this, is that they mix Arctic and Antarctic in swift discursive turns and seldom have any good data about the countries that they suspect of wanting to take over Antarctica for resource extraction. I’m not saying that China or Russia are NOT interested in natural resources in the Antarctic. However, I don’t think they are interested in resources any MORE than all the other states of the Antarctic Treaty. No country has gone down there to simply enjoy an icy landscape. Yet, we never read articles of what is Norway up to in Antarctica, whereas it is the country that fishes up most krill. If Russia essentially stopped krill fishing after the fall of the Soviet Union and Japan stopped krilling in 2012, then Norway’s krill fishing has been on increase year after year. In 2018/2019, Norway fished 245 014 tons of krill, compared to the 2nd biggest krill fisher, China, who came home with 50 423 tons - five times less. Yet, articles like the one linked above, keep asking about Chinese interest in marine resources of the Antarctic. And yes, Russian colleagues at the conference have just confirmed that the Arctic scientific program of this year had to be downsized because they cannot get their people out. But Norway, what is Norway up to? Not having looked into the Norwegian materials closer, i can only guess that the culprit is the nice and pink salmon on your lunch plate - krill is an excellent feed in aquaculture, particularly for red meet fish, because krill makes their muscles even pinker.