Part XVII Anthropogenic Impacts

Although Antarctica is still the most remote and pristine place on earth, there have been many human-caused impacts to this continent and the marine environment around it. These impacts include pollution from research stations, tourism, and introduced species.  In this podcast, I discuss these impacts and how they led to the Environmental Protocol in the Antarctic Treaty in 1991. In addition, I give the history of tourism and when the first women are known to have visited the frozen continent.  Tourism (ship and air), which has been increasing exponentially since the 1970s, is now controlled by the tourist agencies themselves when the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) was formed in 1991 to promote safe and environmentally responsible travel to Antarctica. Introduced species still arrive in Antarctica either naturally or from researchers and tourists, but most of these exotic species fail to survive there. I discuss a few of these species that have managed to gain a foothold in Antarctica today, facilitated in part of global warming trends that provide a more suitable habitat for them.