Q13: APSC Prelims 2022 GS-II: Previous Year Question with Answer

Read the following passage carefully and answer the question : The Antarctica continental region extends over 14 million square kilometres and comprises 26% of the world's wilderness area, representing 90% of all the territorial ice and 70% of planetary freshwater. The Antarctica also extends to a further 36 million square kilometres of ocean. It has limited terrestrial life and a highly productive marine ecosystem, comprising of a few plants, marine mammals, fish and hordes of birds as well as krill which is central to marine food chain and upon which other animals are dependent. The Antarctica plays an important role in maintaining climatic equilibrium and deep ice cores provide an important source of information about greenhouse gas concentration and atmospheric temperatures of hundreds and thousands of years ago. Who owns this coldest, farthest and windiest continent on the globe? There are two claims about it. Some countries like UK, Argentina, Chile, Norway, France and New Zealand have made legal claims to sovereign rights over it. Most other states have taken the opposite view that it is part of the global commons and not subject to the executive jurisdiction of any state. The Arctic and Antarctic polar regions are subjected to special regional rules of environment protection. The above passage tells us that the highly productive marine ecosystem comprises of