NZ to call for constraints on Antarctic tourism

5.00pm

By KENT ATKINSON - The environmental impact tourism on Antarctica and how it can be regulated has taken a new high profile among the nations which govern the frozen continent.

New Zealand and Australia will argue during the first week of the Antarctic Treaty consultative meeting - starting in Madrid on Monday - for a regime of "state of the environment" reporting to be introduced.

And during the second week of the meeting, which finishes on June 20 - New Zealand will be arguing for constraints on Antarctic tourism, and the introduction of a liability regime to impose costs on parties causing environmental damage.

The head of the Government's Antarctic policy unit in Foreign Affairs, Trevor Hughes, said today that there had been a "sea-change" in views on tourism. Now officials were "thinking about whether we need to change the kind of attitude that prevailed through the 1990s, when we were more confident of the industry's ability to self-regulate", he said.

Debate on the issues had begun to crystalise around the end of 2002, based on an interpretation of treaty obligations in the designation of Antarctica as a natural reserve devoted to peace - effectively international cooperation - and science.

"All other activities have to fit with those priorities and protection of the Antarctic environment - and that means that tourism sits a little further down in the scheme of things," he told a briefing for journalists on the treaty talks.

Tourism was previously a big issue at the Antarctic Treaty talks in Kyoto in 1994, when a series of guidelines and recommendations were drawn up for tourist operators.

"There is still a body of Antarctic Treaty parties that think the tourism issue can be managed by issue guidelines ... but there is a growing body of treaty parties that think that is no longer self-sufficient - that's the sea-change in our attitude," Mr Hughes said.

"There are areas such as safety and jurisdictional matter and interpretation of environmental impact assessments which need to be tightened up, and we think some of those areas need to be dealt with in a regulatory way."

Numbers of tourists could be managed -- the 1991 environmental protocol gave powers to categorise Antarctic specially protected areas (ASPAs), and management plans for historic explorers' huts set a limit of 2000 visitors a year for most of them.

"That's one technique, but maybe we need to look to other tools as well which are not to hand," he said. "The ability to measure cumulative environmental impacts is still pretty much in its infancy."

The Madrid meeting was likely to show up two poles of thinking in an organisation which relied on consensus, and some parties might argue that "tourist areas" could be designated to minimise the impact on the rest of Antarctica.

But already the Chileans were providing tourist accommodation at one of their Antarctic bases, and there had been a proposal for Russia to accommodate tourists flown in from South Africa.

"We think this is venturing into territory which the treaty system is not very well set up to deal with".

Supporters of New Zealand's views were likely to include France, and possibly Italy, but the British were still confident tourist operators could be left to self-regulate.

Britain is expected at Madrid to propose a system of international "observers" on each tourist ship visiting Antarctica -- a system already required by New Zealand in the Ross Sea.

Britain had a close relationship with the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO), whose members sent a lot of tourists to British territory on the continent.

But IAATO did not cover some of the big 1000-berth cruise liners which were now going to Antarctica, without being specially strengthened for sailing in ice-found waters.

"We don't have a polar code which would require vessels to be ice-strengthened if they come below a certain latitude," Mr Huges said.

There had been no discussion of a system under which tour operators would have to post big performance bonds in advance of taking tourists to the ice, but a liability regime was under discussion for the protocol on environmental protection.

Unfortunately, the damage from a big oil spill -- such as bunker oil from a sinking ship -- could persist for thousands of years in Antactic waters.

"A ship could make a hell of a mess, and that's the kind of thing we're trying to safeguard against" Mr Hughes said.

New Zealand was known as one of the lead countries on environmental management in Antarctica, and as an advocate of "state of the environment" reporting, and the Government had formally stepped back from promotion of tourism in Antarctica.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said last month that she did not support tourism in Antarctica.

"I think it is a pristine continent which should be kept that way for future inheritance for all humankind," she said at last month's launch of the Shackleton Hut restoration project.

- NZPA