Human Impacts on Antarctica and Threats to the Environment - Tourism

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The Impact of Visitors

Antarctica doesn't have any "residents" everyone who goes is a visitor for a short time. There are two groups of visitors who can have an impact on Antarctica, tourists and those who go as part of a national Antarctic programme.

In terms of numbers, tourists greatly outnumber national programme personnel 47,225 as against 5,000 in the peak season so far in 2006/2007. This led to a call for tourist numbers to be limited as that figure was up 14% on the previous year.

Very large ships do not now go to Antarctica. These used to account for large numbers of the counted tourists as they carried so many passengers. They tended not to make any landings and only made a fleeting visit of 2 or 3 days out of a longer wider ranging cruise. These large ships were a great concern as an incident involving an oil or fuel spill from them would have been very significant. Any kind of rescue or evacuation would also have been very difficult owing to the large numbers of people on board.

The most recent figures for the 2011-12 season show that there were 26,509 visitors. The national programme personnel clock up far more man-days however, and impacts are difficult to compare directly. This figure will probably be the peak visitor number for some time to come (see "Larger Ships" below).

While tourists may only only spend a relatively small time on landings, it is by its nature relatively "high-impact" time - compared to a scientist or electrician say who probably spend most of their time on a permanent or semi-permanent base. Tourists also, by their nature will want to visit the most picturesque and wildlife rich areas of Antarctica, and they tend to do so in numbers far greater than the entire compliment of many Antarctic bases.

Those national programmes that are supplied by ship (as the majority are) have relatively few visits of those ships, whereas in the season, the great majority of all shipping activity in Antarctica is of tour ships. There have been accidents with ships being grounded on uncharted rocks and there have been oil-spills. With the best safe-guards in the world (and it has to be said that marine regulations for Antarctic ships, both statuary and self-imposed are as good as they get) the more ships there are, the more accidents there will be.

Tourism in Antarctica is at present self-regulated by the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO). This is an organization that applies strict guidelines to its member tour operators and ships. Such guidelines limit the size of the ships that can cruise Antarctic waters and also how many people can be landed at sites around Antarctica. So far IAATO is perceived as being successful in its aims and in regulation for Antarctic protection - though there are always those who would have no tourism at all.

Another threat comes from smaller expeditions that are becoming increasingly common by individuals and small parties. Antarctica requires careful planning and a series of fail-safe rescue procedures if anyone gets into difficulty. These smaller expeditions often fail to do this adequately and resort to "humanitarian" requests for aid from shipping or nearby national bases when they get into difficulty. In recent years for example a small helicopter crashed into the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula requiring rescue and an attempt to fly across Antarctica via the pole in a small aircraft ended by the aircraft crashing and the pilot being rescued by nearby base personnel.

There is no guarantee that derelict or crashed vehicles left by private expeditioners will be removed from Antarctica as they should be.

Larger ships

In 2009 the IMO (International Maritime Organization) approved an amendment to MARPOL (International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships - MARPOL being short for Marine Pollution) banning the use and carriage of heavy and intermediate fuel oils for all shipping in the Antarctic Treaty Area.

This ban will largely affect large cruise ships that operate "cruise-only" tourism. These ships carry 500+ passengers and don't offer landings in Antarctica. As a result of this overall tourism numbers for the 2011-12 austral summer was 26,509 (down from 47,225 in 2006-2007) with the difference due largely to the large passenger ships leaving the Antarctic market.

These larger ships have long posed the biggest potential threat to Antarctica from fuel leaks as they carry so much and from potential sinking's, if they no longer sail to Antarctica the risk is reduced greatly especially as they are not ice-strengthened.

Accidents

Fortunately there have been no major pollution incidents or losses of life in Antarctica as a result of tourism, though there was a very close call in November 2007 with the holing and subsequent sinking by an iceberg of the M/V Explorer in the Bransfield Strait

     

Fortunately for the passengers and crew of the Explorer the collision occurred in calm conditions, so everyone was able to get off the ship safely and into lifeboats. It was doubly fortunate as having done so, they found that some of the boats were inadequate in that they were open and not large enough for all on board to sit down and 3 out of 4 of the powered boats engines didn't work.

The passengers and crew spent about 4 hours in the lifeboats before being rescued by other cruise ships in the area, about 15 hours after this the ship sank in around 1,500m (4,920 feet) of water. This despite the ship having an experienced captain and crew and having a double-reinforced hull to withstand submerged ice.

The ship sank carrying approximately 178m³ of diesel, 24m³ of lube oil and 1,200 L of gasoline. A surface oil slick 1.5km long and covering 2.5km² was reported by the Chilean Navy a few days afterwards which grew to about 5km²  though this represents only a few cubic meters of oil. Further slicks were seen in the days following implying there was a slow leak from one or more tanks.

While the lower temperatures in the Antarctic mean that spills may persist longer than in warmer climates, it seems that the generally rougher seas help to disperse spills more quickly. The Explorer was well away from the nearest land, so the slick was dispersed before it came ashore.

The factors of a relatively small ship, calm weather and sinking in deep water well away from land meant that this shipwreck was no-where near as damaging as it might have been for the people involved and also for the environment - these factors however were as much to do with luck as was the ship hitting an iceberg that holed her in the first place.

News summary | Full investigation report - 97 pages, 5.8Mb

How many people go to Antarctica as tourists and where do they come from?

Tourist Data from IAATO

Guardian newspaper article. Explorers or boys messing about? Either way, taxpayer gets rescue bill  January 28 2003.  Their last expedition ended in farce when the Russians threatened to send in military planes to intercept them as they tried to cross into Siberia via the icebound Bering Strait -

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