Can we put the growth in Antarctic tourism numbers into perspective?
Pundits have cited the rapid growth of tourism to the region, calling for a limit. Just how many Antarctic travelers are too many?
For three days in June 2009, nearly 200,000 people will attend the Glastonbury Festival, camping on an English farmer’s field. In August 2009, 50,000 people are expected to pack the main square in the historic center of Siena to watch the annual Palio Horse Race, which lasts a few minutes. On September 21, 2009, 100,000 people will attend the opening game in the new facility built by the Dallas Cowboys. An additional 20,000 will be accommodated in the building during the 2011 Superbowl. During the 2009 Alaska sailing season, 70 ships will disembark 87,500 travelers in Seward, a community that has a permanent population of just over 3,000.
Each one of the events I have listed will impact the local environment through human waste disposal, the accumulation of trash, water consumption, carbon emissions, traffic congestion, and noise pollution.
Compare the impact of the aforementioned activities to that of visitors to Antarctica. In the 2007-08 Antarctic travel season, 46,000 adventurers visited the continent. Only about 30,000 of them actually went ashore with about 16,000 remaining aboard cruise ships well offshore. Those who went on landings, although spread throughout the entire continent, were mostly concentrated in the Antarctic Peninsula – a region covering roughly the same size as California.
All of those visitors were subject to some of the strictest industry regulations on the planet, designed to ensure any environmental impact was minor or transitory. A sampling of these procedures includes absolutely zero trash left ashore, including no human waste; the cleaning of boots and clothing both before and after landings to ensure that organisms are not spread and taking nothing from shore except photographs and memories.
Quark Expeditions welcomes the call to make our present industry regulations binding and enforceable by governments. We also fully support and encourage ongoing scientific research into potential human impacts in Antarctica. Additionally, we support ongoing monitoring efforts to measure and track natural baselines in the region. As a company that specializes in introducing and sharing this amazing part of the world with others, we are of course keenly interested in its preservation in the most pristine state possible. But that does not mean denying future visitors. To us it means ensuring that any visits to the region are conducted in a controlled manner by visitors who are well prepared and expertly led.
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