Antarctica The Earth’s White Hearth
Author Carlo Baroni
Publisher Studio Enrico Rainero
Year of publication 1991
ISBN 88-85700-18-7
– English and Italian Bilingual Edition
Published in the Anniversary of the International Antarctica Tractate (1961 – 1991)
Perhaps one day, if governments arrive at a similar level of responsibility, a decision will be made to leave those territories in the world that are strategically vital for the quality of life untouched, and keep them as World Parks managed by the International Community. The International Scientific Community would thus be able to express all its authority and independence while applying the results of its research to concrete environmental problems, without being organized in an emotive and superficial way, as often happens today. The first park with this extraterritorial status could be the Antarctic, followed by, why not, the Forests of the Amazon, the area around the North Pole, the Sahara desert, the marine environments..
In all appearance, this decision would be less advantageous economically (and therefore politically) in the immediate present, but would be much more far-sighted in the prospect of a global village distinguished by the advantages and disadvantages that caome from a growing co-ownership
Each one of us possesses a hidden territory
That has little or nothing to do with our normal everyday lives.
It is a place that is deep within in our soul,
where our dreams and yearnings, thirsty for knowledge, are united,
where our earliest nightmares have their origin and where our desires come to rest.
We get there after a long long journey,
across an Ocean that little by little forces us to forget our normal lives.
We fly over it as if it were a dream,
where reality is only to be found in the white shadows
created by all that whiteness.
This is a space of silence,
where our ideal dialogues whisper together with others,
where we finally make up our minds to resolve the internal conflicts
that reality brings us every day.
Our survival is linked to being able to recognise and face up
to that primitive space,
of knowing how to penetrate it
without altering its essence
and how to arrive at our destination in the teeth of a howling gale,
whose gusty screams still carry the breath of those who came before us,
and will still wait for those yet to come.
