Antarctic Tourism. An Essay on Contrasts Between Environmental Impact, Current Regulations and Opportunities to Generate Environmental Awareness

FAVERO M

Antarctic Affairs

Editorial Agenda Antártica / ASOC

Lugar: Washington DC; Año: 2019 vol. 5 p. 53 - 59

2451-7755

Although Antarctica is commonly considered a pristine environment it is a part of the world that hasbeen visited for more than 200 years for exploration, exploitation of renewable resources, militarization,science and more recently tourism. The flow of tourists has increased significantly since its inception,reaching current values that exceed 45,000 tourists annually, featuring a marked seasonality and a highspatial density. This spatial-temporal concentration has required, from IAATO and in line with currentregulations within the Antarctic Treaty System, a proactive agenda with the progressive development ofoperational regulations. A factor that cannot be ignored is that tourism, associated with current climateprocesses and their effect on the biodiversity and their habitats, can exacerbate the impact of tourismactivity. Other aspect, although not necessarily circumscribed to it, is the potential for introducing nonnativespecies into the environment, incorporated into the agenda of the Antarctic Treaty System and takenproactively by industry through the design of protocols that require the implementation of strict biosecuritymeasures. In contrast to the potential or actual negative effects on the Antarctic environment, it is worthhighlighting the value of the educational programs implemented on board as a tool to transfer conservationvalues over Antarctica. The challenge for multilateral organizations is to achieve a broad understanding ofthe tourism activity, and to develop and refine regulations that prevent impacts that exceed the resiliencecapacity of the environment and its fauna. For IAATO the challenge will be to ensure that its memberscontinue developing activities within a framework of growing and more sophisticated regulations aimed atfurther improving the performance of operations on land and at-sea, to minimize the impact of tourismover the Antarctic environment.