Plans to limit tourism in Antarctic
The number of tourists visiting Antarctica could be restricted under British plans, amid fears that the increase in cruise ships in the area threatens to cause irreparable damage to the continent’s pristine environment.
Holiday trips to the Antarctica have quadrupled in the past decade and last year more than 46,000 people visited the land mass and surrounding oceans.
However, safety fears and concerns about the impact visitors are having on the delicate frozen landscape have soared and members of the Antarctic Treaty – an agreement between 28 nations, including the UK, on the use of the continent – are now meeting to discuss ways to regulate tourism.
British officials are seeking to establish a “strategic agreement for tourism” around the south pole. If successful, it will see treaty members introduce new measures to improve the safety of tourist trips, while also reducing the impact that visitors will have on the environment.
The regulations could see limits on the number of ships and landings, restrictions on how close they come to shore, a ban on building tourist facilities and hotels on the continent, and rules on waste discharges from ships.
The British resolution has been tabled at the 32nd Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, in Baltimore, USA. The fortnight-long talks mark the 50th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty, which forced countries to put aside their territorial claims on the continent and instead concentrate on scientific study.
Gillian Merron, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister who attended the start of the talks last week, told The Sunday Telegraph: “We do want to see people visiting the Antarctic, but we want them to do it in a safe and environmentally responsible way. We want to manage and protect the area.
“This is very much a first stage, but if we can get an agreement that in the first instance we need that environmentally responsible policy, we can then move on to what that will actually entail.
“What it will ensure is that visitors in the future will be able to experience the continent in all its beauty and its wilderness without spoiling it.
“We have to agree to address questions like what can be built in Antarctic, if anything? Should we allow hotels or not? Would tourists be allowed to wander around or not? In what order should they visit sites? If you restrict them to the same sites, what damage does that cause?”
The British proposal has already received support from US Secretary for State Hillary Clinton who opened the meeting on Monday and the US has tabled its own resolutions on managing tourism.
More than 400 diplomats will now spend this week discussing the plans alongside other issues, including environmental protection and the advancement of science in the Antarctic.
As many of the tourist ships that operate in Antarctica are registered in countries that are not members of the Antarctic Treaty, they are not subject to any decisions made and so can get away with having less stringent safety regulations.
Officials have also asked the International Maritime Organisation, which regulates global shipping, to draw up new guidelines for shipping around the Antarctic, including new rules on the use of heavy fuel oil, which could cause widespread damage in the event of a leak.
Senator Clinton said: “The United States is concerned about the safety of the tourists and the suitability of the ships that make the journey south.
“We have submitted a resolution that would place limits on landings from ships carrying large numbers of tourists. We have also proposed new requirements for lifeboats on tourists ships to make sure they can keep passengers alive until rescue comes.
“And we urge greater international co-operation to prevent discharges from these ships that will further degrade the environment around the Antarctica.”
Until recently, the Antarctic has been mainly occupied by teams of international scientists studying the ice and wildlife in the region, along with military personnel at a few scattered bases.
Unlike the Artic, Antarctica has no indigenous human population despite covering an area of more than 5 million square miles, nearly one and half times the size of the USA.
Humans only began to live there in 1897 with the establishment of a winter station by explorers.
Growing access, however, has seen the number of people visiting the icy continent increase dramatically. Tour operators now offer “ecotourists” the chance to see the stunning wilderness and species such as whales and penguins.
In 1990 Antarctica was visited by just 5,000 tourists, but by 2006/07 the number had grown to 37,552 while the following year saw a 22 per cent increase to 46,069.
Many experts argue, however, that it is inappropriate to bring tourists, who pay around £5,000 for a cruise, to such an inhospitable and remote part of the world, which is too far for rescue helicopters to easily reach.
At the end of 2007, 154 passengers and crew, including 24 Britons, were forced to abandon ship after an iceberg ripped a hole in the side of their 2,400 ton cruise ship the M/S Explorer and it sank, leaking oil into the ocean.
The passengers spent six hours shivering in lifeboats in temperatures of -5C after the Liberian-registered cruise ship sank 75 miles north of Antarctic coast.
In February this year, another cruise liner the MV Ocean Nova, ran aground carrying 64 passengers, who had to be rescued while the 41 crew attempted to dislodge the Bahamas-registered liner at high tide.
The MV Ushuaia, a Panama-registered ship with 122 passengers aboard, also ran aground in December.
Although these accidents involved relatively small ships that had specially strengthened hulls to offer some protection against the dangers of icebergs, larger cruise liners without such protection, often carrying up to 3,000 passengers, also venture into Antarctic waters.
Scientists also fear that the rise in tourism to Antarctica and its surrounding islands, which harbour many rare species, risks unwittingly introducing foreign pests and diseases such as rats, insects and plants could devastate the delicate ecosystem.
John Shears, head of environment and information at the British Antarctic Survey who is attending the treaty meeting, said scientists had been monitoring the impact on tourists on gentoo penguins at Port Lockroy on the Antarctic Peninsula.
He said: “Although the area is heavily visited, we have found that provided the tourists are properly managed and controlled while they are ashore, then the impact is actually minimal.
“If there was to be a big accident, however, there is not just an issue in terms of safety of life, but also in terms of pollution control, particularly as most of the cruise ships are sailing close to shore.”
