Antarctica is an extraordinary tourist destination with its spellbinding wilderness and awesome glaciers, icesheets, mountains, icebergs, pack ice and unique wildlife. The extreme climate and inaccessibility and an element of adventure to the trip.
The Antarctic Treaty recognizes tourism as a legitimate activity in Antarctica but suggests steps for environmental protection and waste disposal. A dominant theme of the Green Peace movement is “World Park Antarctica” to save it from mining, pollution and exploitation of resources. This school of thought claims that `enlightened tourists’ become enthusiastic advocates for spreading the concern about Antarctica’s fragile ecosystems and the need to preserve its pristine purity.
The opposing school of thought lists the long list of woes caused by increasing number of tourists – oil spills from tourist ships, trampling slow-growing moss beds, disturbing nesting and feeding of birds, reckless collection of geological and biological samples, taking historical items as souvenirs, dumping rubbish in cold waters, introduction of alien flora and parasites, concentration of a large number of persons in a small habitat and uninvited visits to scientific bases disturbing their schedules. Since most of the tourist vessels do not have proper rescue equipment and are not geared to face the threats of sudden turbulence in Antarctic weather; mishaps and accidents happen regularly. This forces ”humanitarian” emergency operations by national bases, resulting in diversion of their limited resources and manpower.
Most of the tourists are interested in landing onshore and seeing penguins, seals, ice and snow, though many prefer to just have a cruise in the Southern Ocean and see icebergs, pack ice, landscapes, penguins and seals from the comforts of the ship. Some wish to go for tekking and visit national bases. A smaller number is inclined to camps outdoors, do skiing, ice and rock climbing, entering deep crevasses, scuba diving and having helicopter rides.
Commercial flights from New Zealand and Australia started in 1960s, taking tourists to the South Pole for a short trip. In 1979, a New Zealand tourist plane crashed against the active volcano Mt. Erebus in a whiteout, killing all 257 passengers on board. For the next 15 years, commercial airlines stopped tourist flights in Antarctica; resuming these only in late 1990s. Now there are sight-seeing Antarctic flights from New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Chile and South Africa.
Tour operators in Antarctica have formed a self-regulated association called International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) that was registered in USA in the year 1991. Currently, 109 Antarctica-bound operators from Argentina, Australia, Belguim, Canads, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States are voluntary members of IAATO. They have agreed to procedures and guidelines that ensure safe and environmentally sound travel to the Antarctic, with restrictions on number of people going ashore; staff-to-passenger ratios; activity-guidelines; wildlife watching; passenger, crew and staff briefings; pre-landing boot-washing contingency and emergency medical evacuation plants etc.
But the major limitation in Antarctic tourism is that the guidelines are only suggestive and there is no authority to enforce them. These resolutions are comprehensive but not legally binding. These risk of flouting is great, for example – in the Arctic region, Alaska has a long history of cruise liners breaching waste disposal and pollution laws, even when Alaska is subject to US maritime regulations; imagine what can happen in Antarctica where there is no formal authority.
Another threat is from non-IAATO member ships and tour operators who run cruises with larger ships and greater number of people landing on the continent. When ships with 400-500 tourists approach any penguin rookery, these take more than 15 hours shuttling small groups of visitors to and from nesting sites; distressing the birds for an abnormal duration. In 2009, an American-flagged ship `Princess Cruises’, weighing 109,000 tons, carried more than 3,000 people into the Antarctic Peninsula, in a single voyage.
