A square peg in a round hole: fitting impact assessment under the Antarctic Environmental Protocol to Antarctic tourism

Abstract

The 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty develops and codifies Antarctic environmental impact assessment (EIA) obligations. This paper outlines the history and present nature of Antarctic EIA obligations and reviews the emergence of Antarctic tourism. The Treaty explicitly recognises the primacy of Antarctica's scientific and environmental values, whereas tourism, while a legitimate activity, is not otherwise an embedded Antarctic activity. The difficulties of applying an EIA system which has evolved primarily to deal with national programme activities to the different activities of commercial tourism is not an argument for absolving tourist activities from these obligations. If tourism activities are not adequately addressed, the impacts may not be appropriately considered and could pose unacceptable risks to an environment supposedly legally safeguarded by international treaty.

Impacts of local human activities on the Antarctic environment

“…Clearly, the effectiveness and credibility of the EIA process has a significant bearing on the magnitude and extent of the environmental impacts that are the subject of the present paper. A number of studies have highlighted concerns with the implementation of the EIA provisions: impacts predicted in the EIAs are seldom followed up and verified, EIAs only apply to individual activities, and do not address risks caused by the sum of operations, and the multiple facets of tourism are not addressed fully in IEEs and have not been addressed in any CEEs (Kriwoken & Rootes 2000, Hemmings & Roura 2003, Bastmeijer & Roura 2007. Current research on human impacts rarely provides the information required to assess and verify environmental impacts predicted in EIAs.…”

High level Antarctic EIA under the Madrid Protocol: state practice and the effectiveness of the Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation process

“…Furthermore, a fairly restricted range of activities are in practice subject to CEEs-those conducted by national Antarctic programmes. There have been no CEEs for any activity (including tourism) undertaken by a non-state operator in Antarctica (Hemmings and Roura 2003).…”

“…Invariably, the EIA is written by, or for, the proponent of the activity. Operative decisions about the appropriate level of EIA are generally made (or influenced) by the proponent, although in many jurisdictions, nongovernment activities are required to prepare IEEs (Kriwoken and Rootes 2000;Hemmings and Roura 2003).…”

Antarctic tourism management and regulation: the need for change

“…Another factor that may have contributed to the continued absence of a comprehensive, binding tourism framework is institutional fatigue. It is possible that after a decade of intense debate in international forums about Antarctica and the introduction of a convention prohibiting mining in the continent for fifty years, the ATS simply entered a period of stasis; for instance, Hemmings (2007: 185–187) notes the lack of ATS institutional dynamism and innovation since 1991.…”