Menace of tourism in Antarctica
A report in NZ’s The Dominion says that almost unchecked tourism looms as an environmental threat to the Antarctic, according to a leading expert.
Visiting Wellington this week, Dr Alan Hemmings a senior fellow at Canterbury University’s Gateway Antarctica, said two factors had led to the tourist boom.
The first was the break-up of the former Soviet Union, which created a sudden supply of old icebreakers, which were eagerly snapped up by tourism operators.
The second was cruise operators placing Antarctica firmly on their itineraries.
Dr Hemmings said huge ships were now visiting the Antarctic, with crews inexperienced in the conditions.
The gigantic 210-metre cruise ship Golden Princess took 3700 passengers and crew to Antarctic waters last summer. “That’s more people than on the whole Antarctic continent on all national programmes.
“It just beggars belief that, even if they got these people to shore after a sinking, there would be any way to take care of them all,” said Dr Hemmings, who is based in Canberra.
He said the ship, which arrived and departed without incident, had no special hull protection against the ice. “There are those of us who think this should be absolutely required.”
Operators were also registering ships under flags of convenience to avoid regulations, Dr Hemmings said.
“The MS Explorer, for example, was registered in Liberia.” “Now I don’t think that the Liberian Government was really in a position to help when it sank.”
He said two serious incidents involving tourist boats in the past two years showed an environmental and human catastrophe was on the cards.
The Norwegian cruise ship Nordkapp ran aground in February last year, spilling 750 litres of light diesel. Three months ago, 154 passengers and crew of the Explorer had to be rescued after it hit an iceberg and sank.
He said the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, created to stop military ambitions on the icy continent, could not control an ever-increasing flow of tourists. “It’s really a relic of the Cold War, and there are holes everywhere.”
Tour operators were required to file environmental impact assessments but these varied widely in quality, he said.
“For the two New Zealand tour companies, they are really quite good, but there are other countries where they really just pay lip service to protecting the environment.”
In the 1992-93 season, about 6700 tourists visited the Antarctic, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. Last season, that quadrupled to 29,530.
Dr Hemmings said there were moves under way to bring in more regulations but progress was slow. Meanwhile, the tourism gravy train rumbled on, and the threat of a calamity remained.
A Report by The Mole from The Dominion Post
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