Antarctica has a great value as natural laboratory for scientific research relating with relevant global problems. Unless its natural features could be preserved from pollution and from significative troubles specially due to human action, scientific activity would be seriously limited. Sensitivity of sea and terrestrial Antarctic environments points out that special precautions must be taken to conserve them.

Since the ratification of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, or Madrid Protocol (National Law Nš 24.216 and 25.260), the Treaty System has been streghtened by a series of rules under which the Parties commit themselves to the comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems, and designate Antarctica as a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science.

The environmental protection of Antarctica has two aims: the first one is related to the maintenance of the high productivity and ecological relations in the Southern Ocean, and the other is the maintenance of the environment under pristine conditions. The major value to be conserved in Antarctica is its quality of unique source of information almost free of pollution or other human effects, for geophysical, geological, and biological sciences, useful for mankind.