1991 originally doing research looking
at visitor interactions with wildlife
and how to manage those in a way that
causes minimum disturbance then working
as a guide
expedition leader if you have to safety
but also telling people about the places
they’re going to and more recently well
for the last twelve years working for
IATA that’s less of a mouthful which is
the trade association an industry run
body that looks after safety and
environmental standards and what I’m
going to tell you about is a little bit
about the Antarctic as a whole and why
politically its unique and kind of
interesting and why we hope and we try
very hard to make sure that tourism is a
force for good and in effect is the
butterfly effect that every individual
who goes south comes back and hopefully
becomes an ambassador for the long term
conservation for this very remarkable
continent and both polar regions have
been lucky after working both but there
are regions of extremes you’ve heard the
phrases the highest the driest the
windiest etc Antarctica especially down
here at the southern part of the of the
globe it’s been one of those places that
for next slide has been regarded as a
really far and distant land in fact it’s
only really been in the last less than
200 years that humans have had any
interaction whatsoever with this
continent and the interactions they have
had have resulted in these incredible
stories of Harris heroine or heroine
know um of heroics and of course over
there you know captain oops that worked
amazing sorry and a Titus Oates who
walked out of the tenth thing I’ll just
be some time Captain Scott in his party
and Shackleton with that incredible
story of endurance next slide we’ll try
though
thanks and but our perceptions and if
you can click again you look at the
Antarctic or most people will look at
the Antarctic and it’s it seems like an
island at the bottom
of the globe is the globe itself it’s
the fifth largest continent it’s one and
a half times the size of North America
and this area here this is the the
whoops and we’re not even having that
now and the Ross Sea that’s the size of
France just that bit right there so this
is a massive massive landmass and it’s
it’s unique for many reasons but it’s
only really been in the last 20 years
that we’ve started to appreciate if you
keep clicking with four times of thing
and we started to understand how
important it is in terms of the Earth’s
system it’s got something like 90% of
the world’s ice and 70% of the world’s
fresh water is trapped there it’s
absolutely crucial to the oceanographic
and atmospheric circulation and I guess
we’ll be hearing more about that later
and it’s got some of the highest records
of climate change in the world by
drilling through these ice cores that
have built up over tens of thousands of
years you can go back and each year as
she knows the snow will fall in as it
falls it traps little pockets of air
they eventually get compressed and they
are kept and and it’s like the perfect
conservatory for these samples of errors
so you drill down and I think they’ve
gone back about a hundred thousand years
and are able to collect these little air
samples and figure out what the chemical
composition was at the time and
therefore they know what the carbon
content was etc so it’s a really really
important place next slide Thanks um and
it belongs to no one well it almost
belongs to no one and there was a big
international geophysical year of
focused international effort among
scientists in 1957-58 to do research
focusing on the polar regions and on the
back of that or at that time there was
seven different nations that claimed the
Antarctic Australia which is this big
orange guy and we’ll come back to
Argentina France is this little sliver
here this is New Zealand over here we’ve
got Norway and in this sector here the
peninsula
you’ve got a argentina chile and and the
UK all claiming that same sector two
interesting things about this map you’ll
notice that there’s this unclaimed
sector here and they’re the reason that
bit is unclaimed is because Norway is
very keen not to look at the pie
mentality when you look at the polls
because if you applied that same
philosophy in the north they would have
a very very very slim sector of the
Arctic Ocean
so they’re like no we don’t do the pie
thing we’re only going to claim to here
and this sector here well there’s two
there’s two major countries think of the
1950’s world geopolitics there’s two
countries that don’t aren’t listed here
can you guess what they are the US and
Russia exactly well they they didn’t
claim neither then claim this sector
because they were like north that’s
that’s all very well it’s all ours
so the Russians know correction the
Americans have ended up they put his
station right there at the South Pole so
they have a bit of territory that they
look after in every one sector the
Russians not to be outdone have set a
per station about over here in the very
middle of the continent at the pole of
inaccessibility lake vostok because
they’re the ones they own it because
they they’re the bit at the farthest
point from any coastal region anyway in
during the Gy and there was actually
conflict started to happen and there was
some shots fired by an Argentine vessel
over towards a UK vessel and there was
this potential pretension as there was a
greater understanding of just how
important Antarctica is in terms of
global resources so there was an effort
that they came back the various
countries that were involved in 12 in
particular sat down together and came up
with something called the Antarctic
Treaty which basically and we next slide
things and it ensures that the Antarctic
is preserved for peace and science so
that was in 1959 they signed that just
after the I do I came into force in 1961
and has been running continuously ever
since next
in effect the the anti-treaty there’s
five key areas it’s a masterpiece of
diplomatic agreement it’s only 14 pages
long compare that to sorry it’s only two
pages three pages long only 14 articles
compare that to something at the
Maastricht Treaty which goes on forever
and ever and ever and whoever is read
the whole thing
barring lawyers and Brussels and but
there’s some very important points that
no military activities it’s for it’s for
science it puts science at the front of
activities in the Antarctic and it says
that those who are claiming the sectors
must put their claims into abeyance
basically freeze the claims if you’ll
excuse the pun and make it an
international continent that’s governed
internationally
that’s almost achieved the Argentine’s
there’s still all the companies other
countries will still do a little bit to
try and maintain their presence there
that those claimant nations the
Argentine sent then a pregnant woman to
have a baby about 25 years ago and the
Chileans were not going to be outdone by
that so they sent down a newly married
couple so the child was really Antarctic
and if you get my drift
and the British well they’re British so
I’m on hearing all of this what did they
do they set up a post office so
something Sarah chase the slight irony
in the whole story is that I think two
years ago three years ago and the
Argentine who was born there 25 years
ago actually applied to the UK for a
British passport having been born in
British Antarctic Territory guess what
they gave one to him okay um and the
treaty is very effective they work
incredibly well together they meet every
year they’re going to meet in May in
Beijing and they have done an amazing
job at broadly keeping this continent a
place for peace and for science and
there’s some very good research that
comes out of there
however they have some serious
weaknesses one of which is the fact that
they work on the basis of consensus so
any agreement has to be agreed by all 29
consultative parties that are now
members the next thing is whatever they
agree then has to go back to each of
those 29 different countries and get him
implemented into their own legislation
and one country’s interpretation of
what’s acceptable on an environmental
level is not necessarily in other
countries and the interpretation of what
is acceptable so there’s there tends to
be a slightly unlevel playing field in
terms of what’s allowed and what’s not
allowed and what takes place and what
shouldn’t take place down there and then
of course if you compare the Antarctic
Treaty to the UN which is at about 135
countries versus the treaty which is 29
consultative parties who made the
decision in another 30 who just hang on
and like to be part of the reception’s
and it’s a very small portion of the
global whole so there are non treaty
parties who of course don’t have to play
by the same rules and I’m going to give
you an example of that it’s indirectly
rated related to the treaty but they’ve
got an agreement to manage the fisheries
and it’s called kamlari the conservation
for the Commission for the conservation
of Antarctic marine living resources and
about 15 years ago they decided that
they wanted to they divided the ocean
into all these different sectors and
they divided decided they wanted a
marine protected area in each of those
those have proved to be incredibly
difficult to negotiate and the the first
one to get agreed was this little area
here which was proposed by the British
and it came into effect I think in 2012
2012 2013 and but the big one has been
down here in the raw sea and the next
slide things and this was being this
finally good agreed last November and
some of you may have clocked in the
newspapers that this world’s largest
marine protected area had been agreed
and this is the area here it took six
used to negotiate that and the next two
slides actually or to place such a
profit and they they’ve achieved an
incredible thing in that they did
eventually get to this point but it came
with compromises because every year they
would go with a different proposal a
different version of the marine
protected area and we
rejected by one or two parties and
that’s all it took for it to fail but it
was eventually agreed however it came
with compromises there was changes in to
the size in the area at the very first
proposal and basically blocked off more
or less this whole area as you can see
it’s now slightly patchworked and
there’s a sunset clause which means that
in 35 years time they can reopen the
negotiation and basically if they all
the countries can’t agree again fishing
on an industrial level will continue in
the area and and they maintain a
controlled research fishing area so
there’s a 72% no-take area but the rest
of the area they can that they do allow
fishing on the basis that they can
measure what’s the effect of fishing
that’s the justification behind it
there’s questions about that you look at
some conservation groups say well that’s
a bit of a giveaway this shouldn’t
really be happening and the governments
however are frankly ecstatic that in
this current climate of very weird and
wonderful geopolitics these countries
were able to finally get to this point
in this agreement and and it is
important it’s hugely important that
everybody saw the value in creating an
MPA and the principle of an MPA here in
the Ross Sea but as you can see it makes
dealing with challenges very very
difficult and sometimes the result is
not necessarily what you’d ideally want
so what I deal primarily with is
Antarctic tourism first doing research
assessing the behavior and how to do the
sort of actual management then actually
dealing with people and now more from a
policy perspective and the number of
tourists is in the Antarctic has been
increasing year-on-year since it really
first started in the early early 1970s
until 1991 there wasn’t very many even
in 1991 there was only two or three
ships operating and down taking
passengers to the Antarctic and one deep
field company but at that point at the
same time as an environmental protocol
was being negotiated by the treaty the 7
tour operators who were
working in the Antarctic under some
pressure from governments clubbed
together and decided that they needed to
form a group that would agree on a basic
standards of operation and they would
work together to ensure that what they
were selling was in effect and preserved
and they would work together to try and
make sure that ecotourism or
environmental tourism was a good thing
for the Antarctic and the numbers have
just gone up here’s 1991 and if you look
at it doesn’t really matter what these
lines are at the top the blue line here
is passengers the Green Line is voyages
and the red line here is ships so as you
can see here we go there’s a massive
increase this is the 2007 eight season
then there was a crash with which
mirrored the global economic crash and
it’s gradually building up again since
then and this coming season we’re just
coming to the end there’s three more
days to go before the last of the
tourist operations are out of the
Antarctic
we’re expecting around 40,000 visitors
that’s an awful lot of people isn’t it
until you think it’s a continent 1/2
times the size of North America and
40,000 is just over half of Murrayfield
Stadium capacity so it’s not a lot of
people in global terms but it’s still a
lot of people to visit a place that’s
relatively untouched and so um we do
believe that this comes with quite a
major responsibility so I at O we have
founded in 1991 as I mentioned the
mission statement is to advocate and
promote the practice of safe and
environmentally responsible travel to
the Antarctic next one place and this
this is where it all began this is a
gentleman called Lars Eric Lindblad and
if any of you’ve looked at equal tourism
this is really Loras Eric Lindblad was
seen as the father of ecotourism and
modern environmental focus tourism this
was the ship he had commissioned it was
called the Lindblad explorer and she
first started working down there in the
early 1970s and this was many many moons
ago
antartic tourism is be going on for 50
years IATA this little association has
been going on for 25 and and in those 25
years – um there’s been that’s a guy
right there’s been a series of
developments that have basically just
meant that the Association has gone from
strength to strength now when it’s every
commercial tour operator with the
exception of a few yachts are members
and so they will meet once a year it’s
happening in Edinburgh in five weeks
time to sit down review the season
review the standards come up with any
new guidelines for example we’ve got
submersible and ROV guidelines coming in
we did a ban on the use of UAVs and
drones recreational use of UAVs and
drones a couple of years ago just to
help manage things they coordinate all
their activities they set the standards
as I mentioned and there’s a big focus
as well and working with the rest of the
community and we also track very
carefully who’s going where they go how
often they go where they’re landing what
they’re doing when they get there etc
and one of the really interesting things
again is to look at the nationalities
and in particular I’m going to focus on
these are this is US Britain did a bit
of a drop and the green are German but
down here on this orange line and and
this is when I first started working for
Otto this is China and if you look at
them they’re going up and up and up and
up and up and as of the last couple of
years they’ve either been third or
fourth on the nationality league table
as I said the season is about to end
we’ve currently got a sweepstake in the
office as to who is going to be there’s
a bottle of gin for the winner but we
reckon that China is probably going to
be at least second this coming season so
it’s a really emerging market that
you’ve got going there and one of the
interesting things is previously it’s
always it’s tended to be Americans Brits
Europeans Australasian zet cetera who
all have the same kind of cultural
approach to visiting wilderness areas
and here’s an opportunity for a
different cultural approach and to
manage them so we have a vision as well
and this is the really important bit is
that we’ve believed that to self
regulation
tourism is not only sustainable and safe
but then it creates and it has less than
a minor or transitory impact but also
that it creates a corps of ambassadors
to continue to protect the content that
those people are lucky enough to visit
and visit this incredible place and goes
back to the storytelling before if you
go into these wilderness areas and most
of us cannot help but be affected
sometimes it’s fear sometimes there’s a
desperation to get back to the pub but
most of the time I think there is a
there’s a certain magic and aura that
comes with these incredible places
especially I think in the Antarctic
where no book no film no photo can do
the place justice so we are very keen on
doing what we can to to do that and
ensure that this group of stakeholders
that actually visit the place come back
and become ambassadors and there’s a lot
of having to work with different
international organizations to make sure
that we understand the problems that we
and the other perceptions that we are
dealing with them to make sure it’s safe
and sustainable but also that we can
project the right messages and to these
people – thank you and OOP who’s it
going to work no there we go and to make
sure that the right that’s okay and that
the right messages are going out there
and that this education starts before
people even leave home and travel down
to the Antarctic but especially when
they come back okay next slide and and
just keep click again Thanks and one of
the tricks with that of course and if
you click three more times I think and
is to understand what are the issues
what are the problems where are the
potential challenge is going to come and
to evaluate those and to monitor to make
sure that all the different users that
work down in there whether it’s and the
research stations is a big fishing
industry of course for the MPAs and that
we all understand what’s going on that
we respect each other and that we make
sure that our activities are overarching
ly heading towards ensuring that the
Antarctic remains a place a unique
wilderness place the last great
wilderness thank you
and again I think if you there we go and
so we record as I said before where
everybody goes what they do when they
get what time they were there what day
they were there so we’ve got a really
good overview of their and the spatial
and temporal distribution of activities
and from that you can understand where
the problems are going to come so this
area here is one of the most popular
group of sites is another group down
here is incredibly popular and you can
look at those sites and and then develop
specific management plans for them
monitoring programs to make sure that if
there’s going to be a problem this is
where it’s going to show up how do we
identify it how do we deal with it and
and we can make sure that everything
that’s done right recent fascinating
facts that we found out we were doing
some work with Stony Brook University in
the States and they looked at all of
this data that we have and the actual
landing sites all of the landings that
take place seventy-five percent of them
and I think you can click twice if
that’s right and yeah take place at
twenty sites so virtually all the
activities taking place at twenty sites
if you measure the area that’s only 200
hectares as a comparison that’s about
1/6 of the footprint of Heathrow Airport
that’s a lot of activity that’s taking
place and very very concentrated sites
that can be a good thing it can be a bad
thing we’re exploring what’s the right
thing to do Thanks and and of course a
big part of that as well is is making
sure that people will we work with the
scientific community community but also
that people understand the importance of
science down there so I think three
clicks you do sorry
and so this logistical support long-term
monitoring projects and then there’s
this other fantastic website and I
specifically put this one because if you
remember nothing else remember happy
whale comm because that’s one of the
great websites in the world where you
can go on and if you’ve ever been whale
watching and if you’ve ever seen or I’ve
got a photograph of a whale what you can
do is you can go to this site you can
put in your picture of a whale tail for
example humpbacks as a humpback they’re
the underside of their fluke is
distinctive to that individual so you
can identify them wherever they are in
the world and there’s been some
incredible and absolutely wonderful
stories where tourists have taken a
photograph of a whale down in the
peninsula somebody else or somebody
else’s on holiday in the Caribbean has
taken a few years later amongst
different and has taken a photo of the
same whale and they’re starting to a
really good idea of the pattern of
migration and where the different groups
are going and so and so forth through
this citizen science project it’s just
one project it’s it’s a great name so
it’s an easy one to launch onto but
happy whale comm and it’s there’s some
lovely stories on there so go for it
and then of course it all revolves
around an engagement and education ties
in with storytelling and I think if you
click three times that should do it and
what we as I said want to do is try and
make sure that anybody who goes there
there’s always an education component
there’s always guides with them to do
the geology the history the ornithology
and talk about the whales cetaceans etc
and make sure that when they leave the
Antarctic they’ve returned back home
with a really good understanding of what
the environment is and as I said almost
always even if the Drake Passage is
incredibly rough and they’ve been
phenomenally seasick on the way home
it’s amazing when they walk ashore
within ten meters of the gangplank
they’ve forgotten the seasickness and
they’re just absolutely bubbling with
joy about the whole thing and so we’ve
got a Antarctic Ambassador Program to
encourage people to continue their
interest and keep them interested when
they return back but ultimately the
whole point this all butterfly effect
thing and I think what’s the big change
now is with increasing global numbers
increasing pressure the southern ocean
is one of the greatest source of
proteins left untapped left in the world
natural proteins and there’s oil under
it as well there are all sorts of
minerals under the ice cap – there’s a
potential and of course as the water
that’s locked up in it it’s now seen as
a resource and it’s understood as an
influence on the climate and on
and the effect it has across our world I
think the question is going to be
whether or not the Antarctic Treaty can
cope with that going forward they’re
facing some huge challenges the will is
there the dedication I believe is there
to try and get it right but it’s not
going to be a straightforward task when
you’re having to deal with that kind of
platform for negotiating on etc so um
twice more thing and so in the end I
think tourism has a very important role
to play it’s got to be done responsibly
because we’ve got to get it right but
the adage and that’s often quoted that
you will only conserve what you love and
you will only love what you understand
and you will only understand what you’re
taught is a very true one and I think
there’s a huge role in making sure that
those forty thousand people who go each
year come back and do their bit to March
and do their bit to help conserve the
long-term future the Antarctic thank you [Applause]