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.