Antarctica
Will tighter government controls on Antarctic tourism 'de-nature' the polar experience for cruisers?
When she talks responsible tourism, Kerry Lorimer likes to share an anecdote about an intrepid group of well-to-do American tourists who travelled to McMurdo Sound in the 1960s on one of the first cruise voyages to Antarctica. When they arrived, the cruise passengers were appalled at the Ross Sea's polluted state, says Lorimer - a consultant and Assistant Manager for the Australian-based Antarctic tour operator, Peregrine.
Empty fuel canisters were left scattered around the nearby United States military base and oil slicks dotted the bight, staining icebergs. Stories circulated on board that US military personnel were in the habit of driving vehicles that were past their use-by dates onto sea ice, leaving them to sink as the icepack melted and broke apart in warmer months. When the tourists returned home, they lobbied their local congressmen to do something about what they saw, ultimately spurring a clean up mission in the Ross Sea, including the US base at McMurdo Sound.
Lorimer says the act is one of the first examples of responsible Antarctic tourism and an illustration of how the tourist trade can encourage accountability and effective government policy. "It's critical," Lorimer says of ensuring environmental purity in Antarctica. "It's unquestionably vital because the whole experience is based on the pristine wilderness. If it's tarnished, from a business point of view, we lose our product. Besides that, it's absolutely the right thing to do for Antarctica. It's inconceivable we could destroy or damage one of the last wildernesses on earth." But where does the buck stop?
Cruise ships are still the dominant mode of transportation to the 'White Continent' - unprecedented numbers are expected to visit Antarctica in 2004-2005. As tourism to Antarctica balloons, ensuring responsible travel there becomes increasingly important for the industry and governments alike.
The Federal Government encouraged tighter controls when the Australian Antarctic Division presented recommendations for effective tourism policy at a special Antarctic Treaty consultative meeting in Norway in March this year. Australia's parliamentary secretary for the Environment and Heritage Dr Sharman Stone says the Government is particularly concerned about the potential for an oil spill or loss of life if cruise ship hulls aren't adequately reinforced for ice breaking. Dr Stone also says that current systems for handling Antarctic tourism, led by the volunteer-based International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO), are increasingly insufficient as the industry expands.
IAATO statistics report the number of ship-based tourists visiting Antarctica grew from 6,704 people in the 1992-1993 season (November to March) to 13,263 in the 2002-2003 season and tourist-based cruise ships operating there increased from 12 to 47. "There is every indication that this interest will continue to grow," Dr Stone says.
Australian adventurer Greg Mortimer, whose company Aurora Expeditions is IAATO affiliated, says nearly 20,000 people visited Antarctica over the 2003-2004 season. "It's getting towards critical mass now," Mortimer says. "There are places on the Antarctic Peninsula (Deception and Cuverville islands) where there is no visible disturbance and no known impact on wildlife but it's gotten to the stage where there could be people onshore every day in the summer. It doesn-t seem to have an impact but we need to take care."
Mortimer says the Australian Antarctic Division's proposals are well formulated but already in place under IAATO. He points to several IAATO-developed guidelines, including site-specific management procedures and quarantine controls, designed to limit the impact of tourism in Antarctica.
About 60 tour companies worldwide are associated with IAATO and most run cruise-based operations in Antarctica. Although joining with the industry body is voluntary, member companies are required to adhere to the organisation's guidelines for managing tourism.
Antarctic tour operators based in Australia are responsible to Federal legislation, subject to environmental impact assessments and require Government-issued permits to work in the region. "That level of self regulation and government scrutiny is the start of a very healthy model, potentially," Mortimer says. But he is wary of bureaucracy. "I believe that complex, government-inspired regulation would de-nature the [Antarctic] experience," Mortimer says. "It would go, by definition, the lowest common denominator of government regulation. I definitely don't want to see that."
Most tour companies that operate in Antarctica place significant emphasis and resources on ensuring that their programmes are environmentally sensitive. "It's the most important element of our business," Adventure Associates Operations Manager Stewart Campbell says. "If Antarctica doesn't remain as it is, we don't have a product."
Campbell says Adventure Associates, one of Australia's longest-established operators in Antarctica, has recently emerged from its biggest season in terms of heads and dollars. Although the operator's Antarctica programmes are expanding and increasingly intimate with the environment, Campbell says Adventure Associates continues to tread lightly and the IAATO-joined cruise company welcomes a more incorporated approach to tourism under the Antarctic Treaty system.
"It's in our best interests not only to protect but be proactive in the wider scheme of the Antarctic Treaty system," Campbell says. "All operators to wilderness areas have an inherent interest in keeping things as they are, from a business sense, more than anyone else."
Peregrine Director Richard Mole says people choose to travel with operators based on their commitment to ecologically sensitive practices. He claims environmental responsibility is among the top three reasons people choose Peregrine trips over others, based on in-house customer satisfaction surveys. "It's really becoming an important part of our business," he says. "Customers are demanding it of us."
Intrepid Travel International Marketing Manager Jen Bird says consumers also choose to travel with her company based on its reputation for responsible tour guiding. But she says as more tour companies claim environmental sensitivity they risk undermining their own legitimacy. "Certainly it weakens the philosophy," Bird says. "I think it would be very sad for the industry if [responsibility] becomes a marketing buzzword and ceases the standard of values I think some companies truly believe in."
Mortimer says he believes the Antarctic tourism industry, which works closely with scientists and research programmes (many operators provide scientific support and funding), has more collective expertise than anyone else about the continent's environmental sensitivities. "There is still a good group of companies that works together to ensure high standards of responsibility but it's harder to measure now," he says. "If [the industry] got much bigger it would be hard to maintain those standards."
Lorimer says the regulation issue was high on the agenda at IAATO's annual general meeting (Peregrine is also a member company) in Wellington last April. "Up to now operators have existed very much on a gentleman's agreement with one another," Lorimer says. "What was once a fairly small band of operators who work collegially together is changing."
Increasingly, the onus will come full circle and back onto consumers like the well-to-do American tourists who travelled to McMurdo Sound in the 1960s. "More and more. . . consumers are making discretionary choices based on the green credentials of operators," Lorimer says. Or white, as the case may be in an unspoiled Antarctica.
By Ben Smailes - Issue 16 Winter 2004