As more people are drawn to experience the frozen frontiers, can tourism to the seventh continent be a good thing for nature?
ByDOUG LOYNES
I was halfway through my dinner when the expedition leader announced that our ship was surrounded by a pod of killer whales. Rushing out onto the observation deck, I watched as velvet ribbons of black and white rippled through the frigid waters of the Antarctic Ocean in pursuit of a solitary fur seal, leading it on a deathly dance around the vessel where more orcas waited in ambush. It was a breathless scene that could have been plucked straight from an episode of Frozen Planet.
But I was sharing this moment not with a hardened BBC film crew but with CEOs, stockbrokers and a semi-retired schoolteacher, aboard the Sylvia Earle.
It’s a sign that cruise tourism in Antarctica is a booming business and that more people than ever are experiencing the pull of our planet’s final, frozen frontier. According to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO), my companions and I were joined by more than 100,000 others on the ice during the 2022-23 season (October to March). It’s a significant increase from the highest previous figure of 75,000 during the 2019-2020 season, and it’s reignited the debate about the sustainability and ethics of these tourist expeditions in the world’s most fragile ecosystem. But while it’s important to emphasise the environmental impact of the industry, there’s a growing sense that tourism, if managed sustainably, can actually make a positive contribution to conservation in Antarctica and beyond.
Regulating the tourism industry in Antarctica is a challenge that’s been undertaken by IAATO, an oversight body that’s grown from 7 to 100 members since it was founded in 1991. Operating within the Antarctic Treaty’s legal framework for the overall governance of Antarctica, IAATO promotes responsible and sustainable tourism practices in the region by establishing guidelines to which all its members – tour operators and travel companies working in the Antarctica tourism space – must adhere, from smaller, cleaner Zodiac engines to new biosecurity protocols to protect Antarctic birdlife from the threat of avian influenza.
E co-friendlier ships are making a difference, too: every season a new vessel seems to be launched and lauded as the greenest on the White Continent. In 2019, Norwegian cruise operator Hurtigrute
