Human Impacts to Antarctic Wildlife: Predictions and Speculations for 2060

Woehler, Eric J.; Ainley, David G.; Jabour, Julia

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6582-5_2

Cited by 25 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…With more activities occurring in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, the need for a greater understanding of the scale of human activity will become more pressing (COMNAP, 2016;Pertierra, Hughes, Vega, & OlallaTárraga, 2017;Tin et al, 2014;Woehler, Ainley, & Jabour, 2014). Similarly, a greater focus on health and safety in Antarctica will be inevitable as a result of more stringent domestic health and safety legislation (COMNAP, 2016).…”

Section: Antarctic Research In the Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Is it all going south? Four future scenarios for Antarctica

Liggett

Frame²,

Gilbert³

et al. 2017

Polar Record

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The future is uncertain for Antarctica, with many possibilities – some more plausible, others more preferable. Indeed, the region and its governance regime may be reaching (or may have reached) a crossroads moment as a result of a series of challenges, including the changing Antarctic climate and environment, increasing human activity, shifting values among Antarctic states and a low-cost, somewhat benign governance regime (the Antarctic Treaty System). Within this context there are a number of interdependent drivers that are likely to influence Antarctica's future over, say, 25 years: global environmental and socio-economic developments; Antarctic governance; Antarctic research, including national Antarctic programme operations; and Antarctic tourism. The research presented here involved a thorough examination of Antarctic literature on current Antarctic developments and challenges, and an assessment of global trends. Scenarios were developed through a facilitated workshop process. From these, four future scenarios were developed based on interactions between these drivers. The resulting scenarios provide a dynamic, evolving possibility space to be explored as a means of understanding where Antarctic issues might evolve, depending on the growth or diminishing importance of drivers. In turn these suggest that more structured polar futures are needed based on formal quantitative and qualitative data.

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Section: Antarctic Research In the Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Is it all going south? Four future scenarios for Antarctica

Liggett

Frame²,

Gilbert³

et al. 2017

Polar Record

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“…However, this is also the area that supports the majority of Antarctica’s macroscopic terrestrial life and provides breeding sites for bird populations. Inevitably this has led to the competing uses of suitable ice-free ground for the establishment of human infrastructure (including airstrips, wharfs, laboratories and living accommodation) versus the conservation of relatively flat coastal ice-free ground for increasingly scare terrestrial habitats [9, 10, 11, 12]. As a result, Antarctica’s bird populations may be particularly vulnerable to local human activities such as visitor disturbance and aircraft over flight, in addition to global environmental impacts, such as climate change, which may affect habitats and food availability [13, 14, 15, 16, 17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High Resolution Spatial Mapping of Human Footprint across Antarctica and Its Implications for the Strategic Conservation of Avifauna

et al. 2017

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Human footprint models allow visualization of human spatial pressure across the globe. Up until now, Antarctica has been omitted from global footprint models, due possibly to the lack of a permanent human population and poor accessibility to necessary datasets. Yet Antarctic ecosystems face increasing cumulative impacts from the expanding tourism industry and national Antarctic operator activities, the management of which could be improved with footprint assessment tools. Moreover, Antarctic ecosystem dynamics could be modelled to incorporate human drivers. Here we present the first model of estimated human footprint across predominantly ice-free areas of Antarctica. To facilitate integration into global models, the Antarctic model was created using methodologies applied elsewhere with land use, density and accessibility features incorporated. Results showed that human pressure is clustered predominantly in the Antarctic Peninsula, southern Victoria Land and several areas of East Antarctica. To demonstrate the practical application of the footprint model, it was used to investigate the potential threat to Antarctica’s avifauna by local human activities. Relative footprint values were recorded for all 204 of Antarctica’s Important Bird Areas (IBAs) identified by BirdLife International and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). Results indicated that formal protection of avifauna under the Antarctic Treaty System has been unsystematic and is lacking for penguin and flying bird species in some of the IBAs most vulnerable to human activity and impact. More generally, it is hoped that use of this human footprint model may help Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting policy makers in their decision making concerning avifauna protection and other issues including cumulative impacts, environmental monitoring, non-native species and terrestrial area protection.

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“…Recent recovery of Barents Sea cod stocks due to effective cooperative management and increased ocean temperature (Kjesbu et al . 2014), and CCAMLR's success at reducing illegal, unreported fish catches (eg Patagonian toothfish, Dissostichus eleginoides; Woehler et al . 2014), show that successful cooperative management of polar fisheries is feasible.…”

Section: Cooperative Effort and Shared Lessons Learnedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…perature(Kjesbu et al 2014), and CCAMLR's success at reducing illegal, unreported fish catches (eg Patagonian toothfish, Dissostichus eleginoides;Woehler et al 2014), show that successful cooperative management of polar fisheries is feasible. Attempts to establish MPAs in Antarctic waters have met with limited success, but designating new MPAs remains high on the agenda of many nations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Polar lessons learned: long‐term management based on shared threats in Arctic and Antarctic environments

Bennett

Shaw

Terauds

et al. 2015

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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The Arctic and Antarctic polar regions are subject to multiple environmental threats, arising from both local and ex‐situ human activities. We review the major threats to polar ecosystems including the principal stressor, climate change, which interacts with and exacerbates other threats such as pollution, fisheries overexploitation, and the establishment and spread of invasive species. Given the lack of progress in reducing global atmospheric greenhouse‐gas emissions, we suggest that managing the threats that interact synergistically with climate change, and that are potentially more tractable, is all the more important in the short to medium term for polar conservation. We show how evidence‐based lessons learned from scientific research can be shared between the poles on topics such as contaminant mitigation, biosecurity protocols to reduce species invasions, and the regulation of fisheries and marine environments. Applying these trans‐polar lessons in tandem with expansion of international cooperation could substantially improve environmental management in both the Arctic and Antarctic.

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Human Impacts to Antarctic Wildlife: Predictions and Speculations for 2060

Cited by 25 publications

References 99 publications

Is it all going south? Four future scenarios for Antarctica

Is it all going south? Four future scenarios for Antarctica

High Resolution Spatial Mapping of Human Footprint across Antarctica and Its Implications for the Strategic Conservation of Avifauna

Polar lessons learned: long‐term management based on shared threats in Arctic and Antarctic environments

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