Antarctica's wilderness has declined to the exclusion of biodiversity

Abstract

Recent assessments of the biodiversity value of Earth's dwindling wilderness areas 1,2 have emphasized the whole of Antarctica as a crucial wilderness in need of urgent protection 3 . Whole-of-continent designations for Antarctic conservation remain controversial, however, because of widespread human impacts and frequently used provisions in Antarctic law for the designation of specially protected areas to conserve wilderness values, species and ecosystems 4,5 . Here we investigate the extent to which Antarctica's wilderness encompasses its biodiversity. We assembled a comprehensive record of human activity on the continent (~ 2.7 million localities) and used it to identify unvisited areas ≥ 10 000 km 2 (1,6-8) (i.e. Antarctica's wilderness areas) and their representation of biodiversity. We show that, at best, 7 770 000 km 2 of wilderness remains, covering 56.9% of the continent's surface area, however it captures few important biodiversity features. Important Bird Areas 9 , ice-free Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions crucial for biodiversity 10,11 , and areas with verified biodiversity records 12 are largely excluded. Our results demonstrate that Antarctica's wilderness Antarctica? Environ. Res. Lett. 5, 041001 (2010).

Preservation amenity, research laboratory, or mineral reserve? International perspectives on the values of Antarctica

“…Although total emissions from Antarctic operations remain a small fraction of global emissions, each person travelling to and staying in Antarctica is responsible for considerable quantities of greenhouse gas emissions (Farreny, Oliver-Solà, Lamers & Amelung, 2011; Pertierra, Hughes, Benayas, Justel & Quesada 2013). At the beginning of the 20 th century, the vast majority of the Antarctic continent was unvisited by humans, but by now, large contiguous areas (>10,000 km 2 ) that have no records of human visitation constitute only 56.9% of the continent’s surface area (Leihy et al, 2019). To support the coexistence of the three most highly prized aspects of Antarctica—a scientific laboratory for the benefit of humankind, one of the world’s last great wildernesses, and an important component of the Earth’s climate system—ongoing efforts to identify globally significant Antarctic science and to reduce energy demand in Antarctic operations (Kennicutt et al, 2015; 2016) need to be combined with the dismantling of disused infrastructure and limiting the construction of new facilities (Bastmeijer & Tin, 2015), as well as other policies aimed at restraining the expansion of our collective human footprint in Antarctica and on Earth.…”