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the coastal strip. We are one of the leading countries in
hydrographic charting, an activity viewed as increasingly important for the protection of the environment. BAS cannot take on this role, having no specialist expertise.
Given, then, the concern about the environment, in
particular in Antarctica, where British scientists played such a key role in discovering the ozone hole, a
reduction in our activity would not be easy to defend.
8.
Consideration of the future of ENDURANCE does, of
course, raise the wider issue of how under "Options for
Change" you propose that this country's obligation to defend the other Dependent Territories should be
fulfilled. In all there are 13 and these territories
cannot defend themselves. There may well be occasions
(e.g. serious internal disorder) when at no or little
notice the civil powers would need military support.
have always accepted that obligation.
9.
MOD
As far as the garrisons are concerned in the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, Gibraltar and the British Indian Ocean Territory I see no need for change in the medium term and I assume that your planning is proceeding on the
same basis.
10.
On Hong Kong the indications we have received of the MOD's current thinking about how the garrison is to be withdrawn up to 1997 seems generally satisfactory, as do plans to maintain in the long term a brigade of Gurkhas with a strength of around 2,500, I am told that the plan is to announce in July the withdrawal of one battalion in
April 1992, then to maintain force levels "stronger for longer" than was earlier envisaged with a second battalion being withdrawn in 1995.
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No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.