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Are tourists harming our world's pristine southern continent?

Tourism to Antarctica is growing. Visitors are taking tours inland and even engaging in adventure sports like skydiving and scuba diving under the ever-sunlit skies of a Southern Hemisphere summer.

In a remote, frozen, almost pristine land where the only permanent human inhabitants are involved in research, that tourism comes with risks — for both the continent and the tourists. Boats pollute the water and air, and create the potential for more devastating environmental damage. And when something goes wrong, help can be a very, very long way away.

The 50 countries that share responsibility for the territory through the Antarctic Treaty have done little to manage tourism to the southern continent. In fact, there are currently no rules in force to control tourism to Antarctica. "Not enough has been done in recent years to manage this situation," said Alan Hemmings, an environmental consultant on polar regions.

Antarctic tourism grew from fewer than 2,000 visitors a year in the 1980s to more than 46,000 in 2007-08. This number then dropped to fewer than 27,000 in 2011-12 due to the global financial crisis. This season, however, 35,000 visitors are set to visit Antarctica, with even more expected in the following season.

It's not just the numbers of tourists but the activities that are changing, said Hemmings. "Antarctic tourism in the late '80s and '90s was generally middle-aged people going on cruises to look at some wildlife," he said. "Now people want to go paragliding, waterskiing or skydiving."

Activities such as this can be very dangerous. Antarctica is not only the world's coldest, driest and windiest continent, but also the highest. The South Pole is on an icy plateau 2,835 meters above sea level and the air is relatively thin. This means there is a real danger of hypoxia — a lack of oxygen — for those involved in adventure activities such as skydiving.

Antarctic New Zealand's environment manager Neil Gilbert said more robust monitoring is needed to track the impacts of tourism. "The Antarctic Peninsula is one of if not the most rapidly warming part of the globe," Gilbert said. "We really don't know what impact tourists are having on what is already a significantly changing environment."

There are fears that habitats will be trampled, or that tourists will introduce exotic flora and fauna to the continent. Another major fear is that a large cruise ship carrying thousands of passengers will run into trouble in these ice-clogged, storm-prone waters, creating an environmentally disastrous oil spill and a humanitarian crisis that nations would struggle to respond to.

Hemmings said the current lack of standards is a problem because increasing numbers of cruise ships are negotiating the region's seas without ice-strengthened hulls, as Antarctic legs are added to South American, South Pacific and around-the-world cruises.

However, while many people worry about the dangers of tourism, some experts on the region think that it could be beneficial in the long run. Australia-based adventurer Tim Jarvis believes that if more tourists see its wonders and the impacts of climate change, the world will become more inclined to protect the continent.

"My message to people is that we all have the potential to do far more in our lives than we feel we're capable of doing, and we should explore that. But we must do it responsibly," Jarvis said.

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