Last month's centenary of the ill-fated arrival of Robert Scott at the South Pole prompted a swell of events and publicity. Yet there is another noteworthy anniversary from the far south this month. Sixty years ago, Antarctica — perhaps for the first and only time — echoed to the sound of hostile gunfire. In what became known as the 1952 Hope Bay Incident, Argentinian soldiers fired a machine gun over the heads of a British landing party that was attempting to re-establish and supply an Antarctic base that had burnt down several years earlier. In response, the British despatched armed marines from the Falkland Islands, who forced the Argentinians to retreat and offered naval protection for the reconstruction of the base. The incident was quickly brushed off as a misunderstanding, but relations had been strained. Less than a decade later, the international Antarctic Treaty set aside the territorial disputes that fuelled such skirmishes, and effectively handed the continent over to science.

Such lessons from history are a useful reminder that Antarctica has not always been the research utopia that it is now, and that it took the resolution of real tensions and difficulties to render the incident at Hope Bay a curious historical footnote rather than a sign of things to come. There are also lessons here for the Arctic; specifically, how to manage the region as tensions rise over its oil and gas reserves that are driving greater exploration as the sea ice dwindles.

As we report on page 13, the drive to locate and exploit fossil-fuel resources in the Arctic continues apace. At a meeting in the Norwegian city of Tromsø last week, executives from oil and gas firms queued up to boast of the riches the region could offer to their companies and shareholders.

The high north is no longer a place of interest to only a select few.

Politicians can see the potential too. Ola Borten Moe, Norway's minister of petroleum and energy, last month awarded 26 new production licences for mature offshore oil areas in the Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea. New oil and gas development is under way off Norway, Greenland, Alaska and the northern coast of Russia. According to a much-quoted 2008 estimate from the US Geological Society, about 13% of the world's remaining technically recoverable oil, and up to 30% of its gas, is in the Arctic — most of it under the Arctic Ocean.

Yet, in the wake of the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the environmental risks of such a dirty industry expanding into a pristine environment are obvious. Two environmentalists who envisaged the impact of a spill in the Arctic called it “A frozen hell” in a Nature article published on the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster (J. Short and S. Murray Nature 472, 162–163; 2011).

Such an accident would be a global catastrophe. What can be done, on a worldwide scale, to prevent an Arctic spill from happening, and to ensure a rapid and coordinated response to mitigate the impact if it did? How can scientists contribute?

Common wisdom at this point tends to highlight the difficulties of political collaboration and governance in the Arctic, given the overlapping territorial claims and the lack of an agreement similar to the Antarctic Treaty. It is true that the Arctic Council — which represents the nations and people of the Arctic Circle — has so far done little to answer critics who dismiss it as a toothless talking shop.

Formed in its present state only in 1996, the council did, however, produce its first legally binding agreement between nations last year, which sets out the responsibilities of its members to contribute to search-and-rescue activities. And it has now set up a task force to explore whether a similar agreement could be reached on how to prevent, prepare for and respond to Arctic oil pollution.

That process could yet be controversial — Greenland has suggested it should include a formal liability and compensation scheme — and it is in its early stages. The group held only its second meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, in December, but it is scheduled to report back on the various options next year.

If the council is serious about the exercise — which it should be, given that its members will be on the front line of any Arctic spill — then it could offer a timely and useful contribution. To achieve this potential, it should open up the process as widely as possible, and follow through on plans to involve in its discussions experts from scientific and environmental fields, as well as representatives from the offshore oil and gas industry. It should aim high, and look to create a binding agreement that is legally enforceable.

If that means the council going beyond its comfort zone, then it could seek wider international support for such a move. Several non-Arctic nations, including China and India, are already eyeing the region and its opportunities, and have asked for representation on the council.

Their requests have triggered debate and some resistance, but they surely have merit. Like the far south, the high north is no longer a place of interest to only a select few. Nations in the Arctic Circle will rightly insist on having the biggest say, but all interested countries should at least be offered a voice. And to avoid polluting the Arctic is a cause behind which everyone can surely unite.