Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T18:22:59.028Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mawson’s views on use of natural resources in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2021

Peter D. Shaughnessy Open the ORCID record for Peter D. Shaughnessy [Opens in a new window]  and
Mark Pharaoh
Peter D. Shaughnessy*
Affiliation:
Mammal Section, South Australian Museum, Adelaide, Australia
Mark Pharaoh
Affiliation:
Polar Centre, South Australian Museum, Adelaide, Australia
*
Author for correspondence: Peter D. Shaughnessy, Email: peter.shaughnessy@samuseum.sa.gov.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Sir Douglas Mawson is a well-known Antarctic explorer and scientist. Early in his career, he recognised opportunities for commerce in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions. While at Cape Denison, Antarctica, in 1913 on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE), the Adelie Blizzard magazine was produced. Mawson contributed articles about Antarctic natural resources and their possible use. Later, he advocated Australia be involved in pelagic whaling. He collected seal skins and oil for their commercial value to be assessed by the Hudson’s Bay Company. During the AAE, Mawson visited Macquarie Island where an oiling gang was killing southern elephant seals and royal penguins. Mawson was concerned that they were over-exploited and lobbied successfully to stop the killing. His plans for Macquarie Island included a wildlife sanctuary, with a party to supervise access, send meteorological observations to Australia and New Zealand, and be self-funded by harvesting elephant seals and penguins. Macquarie Island was declared a sanctuary in 1933. Although Mawson has been recognised as an early proponent of conservation, his views on conservation of living natural resources were inconsistent. They should be placed in their historical context: in the early twentieth century, utilisation of living natural resources was viewed more favourably than currently.

Keywords

Australasian Antarctic ExpeditionAdelie Blizzard magazinepelagic whalingharvesting and conservationsouthern elephant sealsroyal penguinsMacquarie IslandJoseph Hatch
Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 57 , 2021 , e31
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ainsworth, G. F. (1914). Report on Macquarie Island. In Cumpston, J. S. (Ed.) Macquarie Island (pp. 251–253, 271–274). Melbourne, Australia: Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs.Google Scholar
Anderson, C., & Brown, G. (1996). Preface to ‘The Home of the Blizzard’ by D. Mawson. Adelaide, Australia: Wakefield Press.Google Scholar
Anon. (n.d.). The Ross Island wind farm project, Antarctica. https://www.power-technology.com/projects/rossislandwindfarm/ (Accessed 3 February 2021).Google Scholar
Ayres, P. (1999). Mawson, a life. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Baker, R. T., & Smith, H. G. (1910). A research on the pines of Australia. Sydney, Australia: New South Wales Technological Museum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blainey, G. (1968). The Tyranny of distance: how distance shaped Australia’s history. Melbourne, Australia: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bonner, W. N. (1982). Seals and man, a study of interactions. Seattle, USA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Casey, R. G. (1980). My Dear P. M.: R. G. Casey’s Letters to S. M. Bruce, 1924–1929. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government Publishing Service.Google Scholar
Chapple, G. (2005). Harvest of souls. New Zealand Geographic 74. https:/www.nzgeo.com/stories/harvest-of-souls (Accessed 5 April 2020).Google Scholar
Cordes, D. D. (1983). The Park at Belair. Adelaide, Australia: Privately Published.Google Scholar
Cott, H. B. (1953). The exploitation of wild birds for their eggs. Ibis, 95, 409–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cumpston, J. S. (1968). Macquarie Island. Melbourne, Australia: Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs.Google Scholar
Dartnall, H. J. G. (2014). Lost in the Mists, Leslie Russel Blake: Mawson’s Cartographer and Hero of Pozieres. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Scholarly Publishing.Google Scholar
Davis, J. K. (1919). With the ‘Aurora’ in the Antarctic 1911–1914. London, UK: Melrose.Google Scholar
Falla, R. A. (1937). Birds. B.A.N.Z. Antarctic Research Expedition, 1929–31 . Reports Series B, II, 1–288.Google Scholar
Fletcher, H. (1984). Antarctic days with Mawson; a personal account of the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic expedition of 1929–31. Sydney, Australia: Angus and Robertson.Google Scholar
Gambell, R. (1999). The International Whaling Commission and the contemporary whaling debate. In Twiss, J. R., Jr and Reeves, R. R. (Eds.), Conservation and management of Marine mammals (pp. 179–198). Washington, DC, USA: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Grenfell Price, A. (1963). Geographical report: based on the Mawson Papers. B.A.N.Z. Antarctic Research Expedition, 1929–31 . Reports Series A, I, 1–241.Google Scholar
Griffiths, T. (2007). Slicing the silence: voyaging to Antarctica. Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales Press.Google Scholar
Hains, B. (2002). The Ice and the Inland; Mawson, Flynn, and the Myth of the Frontier. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Headland, R. K. (1994). Historical development of Antarctic tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 21, 269–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hince, B. (2005). The teeth of the wind – an environmental history of Subantarctic Islands. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Canberra, Australia: Australian National University, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies.Google Scholar
Howitt, R. (2019). Ideological origins of the Australian Antarctic, 1839–1933. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Sydney, Australia: University of Sydney, Department of History.Google Scholar
Hunter, J. M. (2011). Rise and shine; Diary of John George Hunter, Australasian Antarctic expedition 1911–1913. Hinton, Australia: Hunter House Publications.Google Scholar
Jacka, F., & Jacka, E. (Eds.) (1988). Mawson’s Antarctic diaries. Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Jago, J. B., & Pharaoh, M. D. (2016). Pre-Antarctic Mawson in South Australia and western New South Wales. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 140, 107–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leane, E., & Pharaoh, M. (2010). Introduction. In McLean, A. (Ed.), The Adelie Blizzard, Mawson’s forgotten newspaper 1913. Reprinted in 2010 by The Friends of the State Library of South Australia: Adelaide, Australia.Google Scholar
Lowry, L. (2016). Pusa hispida. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T41672A45231341. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T41672A45231341.en CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mawson, D. (1912). Report of the thirteenth meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, pp. 398–400. Sydney, Australia: Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1913). The commercial resources of Antarctica. In McLean, A. (Ed.), The Adelie Blizzard, Mawson’s forgotten newspaper 1913. Reprinted in 2010 by The Friends of the State Library of South Australia: Adelaide, Australia.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1916). A Southern Metropolis. Lady Galway Belgium Book. Adelaide, Australia: Hussey and Gillingham.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1919). Macquarie Island: a sanctuary for Australasian sub-Antarctic fauna. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (South Australian Branch), 20, 15.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1923). Macquarie Island and its future. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1922, 40–54.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1930). The Antarctic cruise of the “Discovery”, 1929–1930. Geographical Review, 20, 535–554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mawson, D. (1934). Home of the Blizzard: being the story of the Australasian Antarctic expedition, 1911–1914. (Abridged, popular edition). London, UK: William Heinemann.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1935). The unveiling of Antarctica. Report of the Melbourne (1935) meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, pp. 1–37.Google Scholar
Mawson, D (1937). Prefatory remarks. in ‘Birds’, by R. A. Falla. B.A.N.Z. Antarctic Research Expedition, 1929–31 . Scientific Reports Series B, II, ii–iii.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1940). Marine biological programme and other zoological and botanical activities. Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911–14. Scientific Reports Series A, Vol. II, 127–167.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1942). Geographical narrative and cartography. Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911–14. Scientific Reports Series A, Vol. I, 1–364.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1943). Macquarie Island: its geography and geology. Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911–14. Scientific Reports Series A, Vol. V, 1–194.Google Scholar
McEwin, E. (2008). An Antarctic Affair. Adelaide, Australia: East Street Publications.Google Scholar
McEwin, E. (2018). The many lives of Douglas Mawson. North Melbourne, Australia: Australian Scholarly Publishing.Google Scholar
Øritsland, T. (1970). Sealing and seal research in the south-west Atlantic pack ice, Sept. - Oct. 1964. In Holdgate, M. W. (Ed.), Antarctic ecology, vol. 1 (pp. 367–376). London, UK: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Paterson, C. (2003). Blizzard winds now harnessed at Mawson. Australian Antarctic Magazine, 5, 34–35.Google Scholar
Quilty, P. G., & Lugg, D. G. (2013). Phillip Garth Law 1912-2010. Historical Records of Australian Science, 24, 134–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SCAR (1989). Meeting of SCAR Group of Specialists on Seals, Hobart, Tasmania, 23–25 August 1988. Appendix 6, pp. 23–24, Summary of statistical information on seals harvested by vessels “Zubarevo” and “Zakharovo” in 1986/87 season. BIOMASS Report Series, No. 59.Google Scholar
Schwerdtfeger, P. (1997). On icebergs and their uses: a report to the Australian Academy of Science. Cold Regions Science and Technology, 1, 57–79.Google Scholar
Selkirk, P. M., Seppelt, R. D., & Selkirk, D. R. (1990). Subantarctic Macquarie Island: environment and biology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shaughnessy, P. D. (Ed.) (2000). Antarctic seals, whales and dolphins of the early twentieth century: marine mammals of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911-14 (AAE) and the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition 1929-31 (BANZARE). ANARE Reports, 142, 158.Google Scholar
Southwell, C., Bengtson, J., Bester, M., Blix, A. S., Bornemann, H., Boveng, P., … Trathan, P. (2012). A review of data on abundance, trends in abundance, habitat use and diet of ice-breeding seals in the Southern Ocean. CCAMLR Science, 19, 49–74.Google Scholar
Stonehouse, B. (2000). The last continent, discovering Antarctica. Burgh Castle, UK: SCP Books.Google Scholar
Swan, R. A. (1961). Australia in the Antarctic: Interest, Activity and Endeavour. Parkville, Australia: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Weeks, W. F., & Campbell, W. J. (1973). Antarctic icebergs as a freshwater resource. Polar Record, 16, 661–665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yablokov, A. V. (1994). Validity of whaling data. Nature, 367, 108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar