Jorge Daura

Jeff Bain-Conkin
Research paper
18/Nov/14
To what extent is tourism affecting the ecosystem and environmental landscapes of
Antarctica?
Antarctica has been know for it beautiful sceneries, amazing ecosystem and
breathtaking environment. Being an extreme environment makes Antarctica one of
the less populated countries in the world, and thats the reason we are losing the
war against leaving it unpopulated by the constant growth in population and
tourism that has happened in the last decade. Antarctica is one of the biggest
continents we have and has potential in every way to be overruled by human to get
our resources. The idea here would be to decide if we want to destroy this
environment of store it for future generation, the ability it has to manage the
temperature of the earth, and be home for one of the greatest ecosystem in the
world, Antarctica has been know to be less polluted area in our world and its our
decision if we leave it like that or decide to start destroying it.

The continent as a whole is divided into territories between different countries.

Australia, Chile and Norway, New Zealand and UK correspond to the greatest
proclaimed land. To a certain way this is to divide the continent and define terms to
actually interact with the continent and explore it. But if we recall to different areas
in history, when different countries proclaim land, doesnt end well. The idea of
proclaiming land for a future use makes sense because we see how countries want

to prepare themselves for the future, but the fact that this idea if constantly in our
minds we see an uncertain future of this country.

The main problem with Antarctica is that the constant growth of tourism is not only
affecting the animals, but also the scenery and landscape and the country.
Antarctica attracts tourist because its like a milestone to get to know that part of the
world and people just keep going ad the tourist rates just keep going up, but that
mean ecosystem go down and animals suffer. In 2012 more than 38,000 tourists
from around the world visited Antarctica and in 2014 that number grew up to
39,000 and the years is not even over yet. People might say that because it a big
continent the impact it not that big, but because of that way of thinking we see how
this problem just keeps getting worst. 30 years ago people would go to Antarctica to
do research on it. 30 years later we are obsessed for going over there just for saying
we went there. Not only we are threatening the environment, but also as more
people go, we start to create more pollution, physical disturbances and landscape
degradation to a land first was not inhabited by us.

Another problem with increase tourism is that its going to be difficult to stop it,
people talk a lot about the experience and now who they talk to desires to go to
Antarctica, is a chain reaction that as tourism increase, population knows more,
more tourist visit Antarctica. In a resent study by BBC people said that the main
reason to visit Antarctica is to see the penguins, but what they dont know is that is
they continue to do that people will disappear in the future. The fact that the main

reason people go to Antarctica is in danger not only for the one who travel there,
that will not be able to see this beautiful animal, but also for the entire ecosystem of
the continent. We are threatening the natural environment of what used to be a
perfect environment, that now we consider a tourist attraction that later it might
become a life-saving land, not only for the increasing global warming, but for the
recent discovery of oil in Antarctica. This means that not only people are interested
in Antarctica, but also oil companies that will do anything to find more petrol round
the world.

To expand on one of the point talked about before, let me say that ice thawing is a
very big problem in Antarctica. Studies have shown that the thawing ice is part of
the natural process of the earth motion through the years. People dont put much
attention to it because they think it will recover its self from what we have done.
Bias scientists say that due to the sunspots in the sun or the albedo effect in the
earth, the ice in the north and South Pole is starting to melt. We know that the
increase in temperature affects the ice and if we accelerate the process of melting by
taking tours or drilling petrol out of it, we are just helping the process to move
faster. There is a video that compares tow cases; how in 100 years ice melted 10 km
into the Antarctic ice and how with the increase in tourism and firm attraction and
global warming, the same amount of ice has melting only in 10 years. This is telling
us the reduction of habitat is happening, to certain animals like the polar bear, or
even the penguins that live in this glacier. The constant physical disturbance we are
creating is enhancing the effect. Its hot helping us, or the animals that consider

Antarctica home. We are against a wall with a double-sided knife, because either
way we go, we have already affected the ecosystem. We might try to reduce the
effect but its to late.

Tipping point is term used by scientist to say that there is no way back to a certain
change. I think this precisely describe what is happening with the ice thawing, we
have reach the tipping point of what we can control and there is no way. The
reaction to come will be seen in the animals and the different habitats that start to
disappear.

This idea brings me to my other point about the increasing ozone hole located right
on top and Antarctica. NASA has seen measured that the whole is increasing and
while continues to increase if we dont do something about it. The whole in the
ozone layer is affecting the Antarctic ice more than we human do as a tourist, but
that is not a valid reason that we are not contributing to the change we see. Due to
the wind in Earth all the pollution we produce go to the North are South Pole. That
means that we are not only affecting Antarctica when we go there, but also in our
daily life activities. Each day we produce more than 5860 metric tons of Carbon
Dioxide into the Atmosphere and the majority end up in Antarctica or Greenland.
The fact that we are not only affecting the environment when we go, but our daily
life makes me think about the reality we are living, how every decision we take can
make a major change in our environment and our daily life, maybe its not in a place

we live or what we meant to do. The Ozone will always be affected with what we do
no matter where; we need to be careful with our actions.

We need to be careful not only with the environment, but also with the wildlife
surrounded by it. In Antarctica there are 2 main animals on Ice, The polar bears and
the Penguins. On Water, The seal, the killer whale and some small fish. When we
make these changes to our environment we are not affecting ourselves but also
theses animals. The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) records
the population of all the possible species in the world each year and makes sure
none of them goes extinct. They are listed in seven different categories. The polar
bears are listed as Vulnerable and the Emperor Penguin (The most commonly seen
in Antarctica) is listed as near threatened. The fact that these animals are starting to
create concern to the IUCN makes us realized that we are spawning a major
problem. There are mayor types of penguins in Antarctica and we need to focus on
all of them, not only because there is abundance of them, we can afford to not care
about them, same with the Polar bears.

A more detail explanation to the problem we are creating is that not only the
animals mention before are getting damage, but the whole food chain main worsen
due to one animal. The food chain for a penguin is the following:

Phytoplankton Krill PenguinKiller Whale

This is telling us that not only we are going to damage an animal we are damaging a
whole food chain, ecosystem and environment. The increase in tourism will increase
the migration strategies done by the penguin in the area, making it difficult for them
to find food in other places. As we recall this are all chain problems that create
domino effects to all the problems. Tourism is good to get to know the world but if
we dont care about what we have, it will never be good to travel the world again,
specifically Antarctica.

I conducted research on the fact that if freshmen student where willing to go to

Antarctica in the future. From a total of 50 freshmen 38 % said yes. Some of the
reason they said yes was because they wanted to get to know the penguin more
closely or polar bears. Other answers where that they might do research in
Antarctica. The other 12% said No; the main reason was because they said it might
be too cold or they dont like being in extreme environments for extended period of
time. This 38% tells me that the word is not spread enough to stop the constant
tourism and if this happens tourism will increase in the future. The fact the majority
of the people said they wanted to go there because of the penguins makes me think
about them and their poor future living condition if this happens.

An interesting response was a freshman that told me that she wouldnt go because
of the current problem with the animals habitat change and disturbance, she is very
into the environment and she would like to keep it that way. This caught me out off
guard because it didnt know people all ready knew about this problem. The fact

that she know, tells me that the word about Antarctica is spreading and people are
starting to realize the thing we are doing wrong.

Earlier we have been talking about the environment, but the environment has a big
correlation with physical disturbances. If we affect the environment we create more
physical disturbance. Physical disturbance is a term given to the damage humans
makes over time to a certain ecological niche. In this case the Antarctic ice sheets.
The physical disturbance human makes is much higher now than we have ever
created in the past. Besides the increase in technology, which has allowed to go
places we have never been, the fact that we know seek to know more about the
world makes us curios about what is out there, but we do this without actually being
inform what is happening. Going to Antarctica is a great example and that is why we
should stop going. Im not arguing that researchers are not allows to go, my point is
that we need to be more careful with what we want to research and take devotion
with what nature has and ensure that we have the same animals for future
researchers.

Physical disturbance come into place when we are trying not to affect any part of the
animals ecosystem, niche or environment. Tourism and research affect the niche in
the same way, is disturbance that normally animals would experience. They feel
frightened for the new experience and dont know how to react, creating a chain of
problems that might not affect them know but in the future to come. We need to
take care of what we have know and the way of doing it drastically reducing the

amount of tourism the flows into Antarctica and the amount of research that takes
place there. Take into account that there is more petrol companies that want to
extract oil from Antarctica and that will create a lot of physical disturbance for the
animals living there. In addition, its safe to say that the constant introduction of
machinery that also affects the natural environment animals are used to. The fact
that petrol companies say that animals will eventually evolve to get used to the new
condition is not yet an actual proven theory due to the fact, that we have been
introducing machinery into Antarctica and the population of penguin keeps
decreasing drastically as we advance through the years.

To conclude the argument we can see that there are several reasons why people will
continue to go to Antarctica and why people will not go. In the end I think that it all
come down to the values each of us have and if we care enough about the animals
that we will help them survive. In addition, I think that we are the only one who can
make this change. The fact that we are the ones destroying it we can make it come
back together and identify what are we doing wrong to come out with a social,
environmental and economic solution that will improve our own lifestyle and the
Antarctic ecosystem for the animals living there. Antarctica is a great continent and
as humans we need to protect from our own destruction to grow as a healthy
population.

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Appendix
Questionnaire:

Would you like to visit Antarctica in the Future?

___ Yes

___No

Why?
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