Antarctica’s tainted horizons
Interview by Ethirajan Anbarasan
Air view of Antarctica’s icy peaks.
An albatross that died after taking the bait from a fishing hook at
sea.
Old waste dumps like this one are being removed from Antarctica as
part of the environmental clean-up.
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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. |
The U.S. McMurdo base,
on Ross Island.
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The world’s coldest, driest, windiest place Antarctica and its ice shelves cover about 14 million square kilometres, 10 per
cent 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 km3
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. |
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 dark 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 A
continent for peace and science).
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.