Antarctica's tainted horizons - includes related article on Antarctica's ice shelves

The Antarctic was designated 'a continent for peace and science' in an international treaty signed 38 years ago. In the last decade a wide-ranging Protocol has been added to this to provide the continent with better environmental protection. But today clark shadows of pollution are looming over this remote continent with a unique international status. On the eve of a meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations to be held in May 1999 in Lima, Peru, Dr. David Walton of the British Antarctic Survey explains why conservation of what is still 'the world's cleanest place' is important for all of us.

Who owns Antarctica?

The Antarctic is unique in that it is owned by no one country and has been governed for almost 40 years by an international treaty (see box). Because of this it cannot be controlled or policed as areas of national sovereignty can. To make changes in the rules, the 27 Antarctic Treaty (AT) countries all have to agree.

Do people need to get a visa to go there?

If you are a citizen of an AT country, then these days you have to get a permit to meet the requirements of the environmental protocol. Since these countries represent 70 per cent of the world's population, there is a strong presumption that most people who will be going to the Antarctic will be getting permits. If they are tourists, travel agents will get a permit for them. Countries which are not party to the treaty do not have to provide permits.

Is there much tourism?

Tourists attracted by the continent's remoteness, wildlife and stunning scenery first came by ship in the 1960s, and in the past two decades their numbers have climbed steadily. Air tourism has also developed over the past decade. Last year there were over 10,000 tourists in Antarctica - more people than were concerned with all the scientific stations and their logistic support. Some 60 or so sites are regularly used for tourist visits.

Do tourists bring pollution?

Many tourists are already well informed about environmental issues and know that uncontrolled tourism can damage the features that make the area special. As yet there is no unequivocal scientific evidence of damage but there must be a limit to the number of visitors that sites can sustain before the vegetation or wildlife are trampled out of existence.

How can numbers be controlled?

There appears to be no legal way at present to do this for visitors to an international area. Governments can help manage tourism by limiting permits to companies with good environmental records, but my view is that the tour companies themselves must accept the responsibility to limit impacts by policing their customers.

Worryingly, the passenger capacity of cruise ships is rising, with ships carrying up to 1,700 passengers proposing to transit the Antarctic whilst others intend to land up to 800 passengers at individual sites. My personal experience of tour ships has so far been good, with guides working hard to inform passengers as well as keep them to a strict environmental code whilst on shore. They do not leave litter, the ships do not deposit waste overboard in Antarctic waters and for the most part visitors do not appear to seriously disturb wildlife.

Why is it so important to preserve the Antarctic environment?

The Antarctic is special because it has less pollution than anywhere else in the world - it doesn't have any smokestack industry, agricultural activity or permanent human population. We can use it as the baseline against which pollution levels in other parts of the world can be measured, to tell us whether or not the situation is getting worse. From this point of view, the Antarctic will only remain scientifically valuable if it is properly managed today.

Sampling snow cores in Antarctica has given us a range of pollution yardsticks. We can see in the snow the increasing levels of lead we have been putting into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, with the most rapid increase when lead was added to fuel for cars. The snow also contains a signature of the worldwide pollution caused by the atomic bomb tests of the 1950s and 1960s. Most recently we have been able to detect carbon particles in the air produced by forest fires in the tropics.

What can be done to combat these environmental threats?

You have to distinguish between global and local threats. Let's look at the local problems first. Until the mid-1950s there was very little scientific activity in the Antarctic and the only industry in the area was whaling. At that time the oceans were seen as suitable repositories for waste, and dumping waste in uninhabited areas was acceptable. When I first began work in the Antarctic in 1967, recycling was not even considered in many research stations and dumping waste in remote areas of the Antarctic was a common practice. Unfortunately, in the low temperatures characteristic of the Antarctic, there is virtually no bacterial decay, so the wastes associated with scientific stations and with this laissez-faire attitude of earlier days are still with us. In fact it was this problem of waste disposal that raised the alarm among AT countries and led to the signature in 1991 of the Protocol for the Protection of the Antarctic Environment. This protocol, which came into legal force in January 1998 but had been followed by most countries since 1991, introduced rigorous environmental regulations and forced countries to clean up the mess they had created.

Is the protocol working?

The rules comprise the most stringent conservation and management rules so far agreed upon anywhere in the world. They cover all human activities in Antarctica, and include stipulations for rigorous control of waste disposal and contingency plans to combat marine pollution and protect flora and fauna. No mining or exploration for minerals or hydrocarbons will be allowed in the Antarctic for the next 50 years. The AT nations have taken their role as managers very seriously and made enormous amounts of investment in changes of practice. It costs a lot of money to be environmentally clean. When the U.S. agreed to the protocol they immediately produced $30 million for clean-up operations around the American scientific stations.

In other words, the Antarctic Treaty and the Protocol to prevent pollution are functioning well within the Antarctic itself but pollution is coming in from outside.

That's right. Most of the Antarctic pollutants come from industrial and agricultural activity in the northern hemisphere. We can measure them in the air, the snow and in the plants and animals. For example, there is one especially unpleasant group of chemicals called persistent organic pollutants (POPs) which comprises insecticides, herbicides and other environmentally damaging substances. These compounds do not exist naturally, break down only very slowly in marine and terrestrial ecosystems and accumulate with toxic effects. None of them are made or used in the Antarctic and they are now banned from use both there and in many other parts of the world. They mainly originate from the northern hemisphere, produced by agriculture, industrial processes and from waste breakdown. Measuring their presence in Antarctic penguins and seals indicates the baseline pollution level for these compounds throughout the world. The increasing range and concentration of many POPs in Antarctica is a sobering reminder of how far these damaging compounds can spread outside our control and how little we can do about it.

Industrial countries of the North contribute up to 80 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming and endanger fragile areas like the Antarctic. Yet these countries are also parties to the environmental protocol to preserve the Antarctic environment. Isn't there a contradiction here?

That is quite correct. It is surprising, to say the least, that states which have shown extraordinary co-operation in preserving the Antarctic environment are not doing enough to control the pollution in their own parts of the world.

The Antarctic Treaty is a bit like the International Law of the Sea, where everybody agrees on what should happen on the high seas and then does something different in their own waters. There seems to be a contrast between what countries can do co-operatively in an area that is not owned by them and is not being industrially developed by them and has no indigenous population, and what they do in their own territory where there is a population, industry and expectations for a different way of life.

What can be done?

Nothing can be done to prevent this long-range pollution in the Antarctic which is due to industrial activities in other parts of the world. Antarctic pollution will continue as long as pollution continues elsewhere in the world. What we can do is to attempt to keep our own Antarctic house in order by ensuring that the activities that take place down there are first of all subject to environmental impact assessment and then that we use technologies and methodologies that minimize damage or pollution.

Would you say that environmental protection is easier in the Antarctic than in the Arctic?

One major reason why the AT nations have been able to introduce such stringent environmental regulations is that there is no indigenous population seeking to fulfil its aspirations at the cost of the environment. In the Arctic region on the other hand, where there is a sizeable population and countries have sovereign territory, there are very considerable areas of mineral development and hydrocarbon and gas extraction. In Siberia, for example, there are enormous oil spills from fractured pipelines and heavy metal pollution problems from smelters that simply do not occur in the Antarctic.

Who is liable for environmental damage in the Antarctic? Environmentalists say the Treaty is not clear about this.

That is true. No agreement has been reached as yet. This question is on the agenda for the treaty meeting in Lima in May.

Why do countries not agree about this?

There are a number of difficult problems. First of all you have to get 27 countries with 27 different legal systems and 27 different cultural expectations to agree on what liability means.

Take, for example, the idea of a protected area in a national park. In the U.S., a national park is a protected area owned by the Federal government and is run as a park for conservation purposes. A national park in the UK is not owned by the government but by lots of separate land-owners. It isn't run mainly for conservation purposes. It contains industry, housing and all sorts of other activities. It doesn't bear any resemblance whatsoever to the American, German and French versions. The same term in law means lots of different things in different countries. That is one of the major problems we face in the case of liability.

Do any states parties to the Antarctic Treaty still have territorial claims over the Antarctic?

The Antarctic treaty freezes all territorial claims that were there in 1961 and these cannot be improved on or added to in any way. Taking away this major source of international disagreement has allowed the parties to continually adjust the treaty to meet changing public and political needs over the past 38 years. Of particular importance throughout that period has been the scientific advice on the best methods for management that has been supplied by the international science community. That makes the AT a slightly unusual treaty. By including scientists right from the start it has been able to tap into the scientific community and get sound scientific advice.

What kind of scientific research is being done in the Antarctic?

The special environmental characteristics of the continent make it possible to carry out scientific investigations and experiments which are not possible anywhere else in the world. We are looking at animals and plants that can survive in the very low temperatures and very dry atmosphere which are characteristic of the Antarctic. We are using the Antarctic as an experimental area to test out theories about whether life can survive on Mars. And we are managing one of the largest fisheries in the southern hemisphere.

Because of the characteristics of the earth's magnetic field, the Antarctic has some unique features enabling us to investigate the causes of solar storms. These occur when a solar flare on the sun produces a storm of charged particles which hurtle towards the earth and affect its upper atmosphere, where hundreds of communications, navigational and television satellites have been positioned. In the Antarctic we are working on measuring solar storms and developing a model which will warn us about their likely effects so that we can protect satellites by moving them to a safer orbit or by switching them off. Damage can affect a lot of people.

For instance, a solar storm produced a tremendous amount of induced current in a power system in North America a few years ago causing the whole of Quebec's electrical system to collapse. If we can develop a model which tells us what the strength of the storm will be and when it will strike and so on we can take precautions to stop that sort of thing happening. In addition to measuring pollution levels, research is also being carried out into many aspects of global warming, melting ice sheets and rising sea levels.

There have been reports that ice shelves in the Antarctic are disintegrating and drifting away. Is this so?

We know that some of the smaller floating ice shelves on the Antarctic peninsula have disintegrated over the last 40 years. They don't make any difference to the sea level because they were already floating but they do show that significant regional warming is occurring in this area. What we still don't know yet is whether the total ice sheet is in balance.We are developing a model but it will take many more years yet before we can be certain if and when the ice sheets could melt.

What is the present situation of ozone depletion above the Antarctic?

It was the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic in 1985 by the British Antarctic Survey that drew attention to the depletion by industrial processes, notably chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases, of the ozone layer that stops harmful solar radiation from penetrating through to the earth's surface. Last spring saw the lowest ozone level in the Antarctic ever recorded.

We will not see the ozone level climb back up to normal protective levels until we have got rid of all the chemicals which are causing ozone destruction in the upper atmosphere. Since CFCs are still around it is unlikely that there is going to be a sudden recovery of the ozone layer in the next few decades. As of now there is a black market in CFCs to get round the restrictions on trading and manufacture.

There are so many CFCs around - in deep freeze and air conditioning plants - that it is not going to be possible to get rid of them quickly. We are going to be faced with ozone depletion for a considerable time. Depletion is already happening in the Arctic, and ozone levels above Europe have declined in the past few years. It is happening all over the world. The most frightening thing is just how difficult it is to gain any real control over such serious global damage to conserve the world for future generations.

RELATED ARTICLE: A continent for peace and science

Internationally co-ordinated work in the Antarctic began with the scientific initiative called the international Geophysical Year in 1957. The results were so impressive, both scientifically and politically, that in 1959 the participating countries signed the Antarctic Treaty (AT), which came into force in 1961. The Treaty, which runs indefinitely, designates the continent as an area for peace and science, freezes all territorial claims, forbids military activity and nuclear waste disposal, and encourages international collaboration in science and logistics. The Treaty was initially signed by Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Japan, South Africa, the former Soviet Union and the United States. Since 1961 a wide variety of extra legislation has been agreed at the regular meetings of the AT nations, who now comprise 27 countries with active scientific programmes covering areas of science ranging from the outer atmosphere to the rocks beneath the ice sheet, from the bacteria in ice cores to the origin of the Southern Hemisphere continents. Many of the projects are now so large (e.g., estimating whether the whole ice sheet is growing or melting) that they can only be accomplished by big international teams working over several years. A further 16 countries have acceded to the Treaty but do not undertake research. AT countries represent around 70 per cent of the world's population.

In 1991, the AT nations signed the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty, which bans mining for 50 years and provides for a fully comprehensive regime of environmental protection.

RELATED ARTICLE: The world's coldest, driest, windiest place

Antarctica and its ice shelves cover about 14 million square kilometres, to percent of the earth's land area. Less than 1% is free of permanent ice and snow. The highest continent (estimated average altitude 2,300 m), it is perpetually hidden beneath the planet's largest ice cap, built up over 400,000 years of compacted snow fall and now almost 5 km deep in places. The ice cap contains over 32 million [km.sup.3] of ice (about 90% of the world's ice and almost 70% of its fresh water), but with an average precipitation of only 5 cm per year, Antarctica is the driest place on earth.

Antarctica is also the world's coldest place (annual mean temperature -16 [degrees] C). The coldest temperature ever recorded on earth was -89.6 [degrees] C at Russia's Vostok research station in July 1983. Strong winds, sometimes up to 320 km per hour, blow throughout the year. Recorded annual mean wind speed average is about 67 km per hour, making it the planer's windiest place.

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