Why do so many nations want a piece of Antarctica?

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27910375



***SNIP

Other deserts, from Arabia to Arizona, are peopled: humans live in or around them, find sustenance in them, shape them with their imagination and their ingenuity. No people shape Antarctica.

It is the driest, coldest, windiest place in the world. So why, then, have Britain, France, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina drawn lines on Antarctica's map, carving up the empty ice with territorial claims?

Antarctica is not a country: it has no government and no indigenous population. Instead, the entire continent is set aside as a scientific preserve.

The Antarctic Treaty, which came into force in 1961, enshrines an ideal of intellectual exchange.