World Park Base was a non-governmental year-round Antarctic base located at Cape Evans on Ross Island in the Ross Dependency. The international environmental organization Greenpeace established World Park Base in 1987 in order to press its demand for the Antarctic Treaty nations to declare all of the continent of Antarctica a World Park. This would make the entire continent off-limits to commercial exploitation and pollution, and permit only limited scientific research. Greenpeace closed down and completely dismantled the base in 1992.
The official attitude amongst the Antarctic Treaty nations was that World Park Base was to be ignored and that no assistance be given to it, although New Zealand, which claims jurisdiction over Ross Dependency (though all territorial claims are in abeyance under the Antarctic Treaty), would have assisted if a life-threatening situation arose.
Famous quotes containing the words world, park and/or base:
“We have seen her
the world over,
Our Lady of the Goldfinch,
Our Lady of the Candelabra,
Our Lady of the Pomegranate,
Our Lady of the Chair.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“The park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,”
—Sara Teasdale (1884–1933)
“What I often forget about students, especially undergraduates, is that surface appearances are misleading. Most of them are at base as conventional as Presbyterian deacons.”
—Muriel Beadle (b. 1915)