Antarctic tourism: developing knowledge and tools to minimise cumulative impacts on biodiversity and wilderness values in Antarctica (ANT-MICI)

Thirty years ago, Antarctica was designated as a natural reserve devoted to peace and science (Art. 2 Madrid Protocol). Human activity in the region has been growing ever since - there has never been more interest in Antarctica as a tourism or science destination as there is today. Since the early 1990’s, the number of tourists visiting Antarctica increased from almost 6,500 in the 1991–1992 season (Enzenbacher, 1993) to almost 75,000 for the 2019–20 season (IAATO 2020). Due to the pandemic, numbers have recently dropped dramatically (IAATO, 2021a),
but it is expected that they will rise strongly again in the post-COVID 19 period (Hughes and Convey 2020, IAATO, 2021b, Nielsen et al., 2022).
Most human activities in Antarctica, including tourist activities, fall within the scope of the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty. However, Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties lack understanding of the cumulative impacts of human activities on the continent. Within the existing rules, Consultative Parties have been especially unable to develop a comprehensive, evidence-informed understanding of, and mitigation strategies for, the cumulative effects of tourism in Antarctica, which is what we focus on in this proposal.