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By Peter Rejcek, Antarctic Sun Editor
Antarctica has come to symbolize one of the last, great
frontiers for science — a pristine, natural laboratory
for oceanography, glaciology, biology, astrophysics and
a host of other research endeavors.
Keeping the continent neat and tidy — unsullied
from pollution and degradation from human activities as
much as possible — is one of the chief goals of the
nations that operate on its ice sheets, in biologically
and geologically diverse areas, and near its shores.
Environmental protection of Antarctica has been a cornerstone
of international policy since at least the 1960s, and
many areas of special interest to scientists and historians
enjoy additional safeguards under various designations
that dictate how national programs manage those sites.
The management plans for six sites overseen by the U.S.
Antarctic Program (USAP), called Antarctic Specially Protected
Areas (ASPAs), are up for review by the nations that take
part in the Antarctic Treaty System, a nearly 50-year-old
collection of agreements that regulates activities on
the seventh continent.
It’s up to Nathan Biletnikoff, manager of Raytheon
Polar Service’s environmental engineering department,
and his team to ensure the ASPA management plans remain
current with how the United States and others use those
sites. Raytheon Polar Services (RPS) provides much of
the logistical support for the USAP, which is managed
by the National Science Foundation.
“We’re taking environmental protocol that has
been evolving in the treaty system, and that has been
implemented by treaty members, and making sure we’re
on pace with everybody,” Biletnikoff said.
However, the USAP wants to do more than follow. “Actually,
we’re trying to lead the way [on conservation],”
he added.
“What we are implementing are slightly stricter
environmental protocols,” Biletnikoff said. The updates
to the management plans, for instance, focus on preventing
the invasion of nonnative species to Antarctica or cross-species
contamination of neighboring sites.
For example, the McMurdo Dry Valleys, a relatively ice-free
area that is the site of a number of scientific studies,
has a series of lakes that contain endemic microorganisms.
Scientists who study these ecosystems risk transporting
a species from one ice-covered lake to another, so one
recommended procedure would require personnel to wash
boots after working in one of the lakes.
“Some of those species are actually separated in
those lakes, where they occur in one lake and not the
other,” Biletnikoff explained.
There are 67 ASPAs under the treaty system, many of which
were established as early as 1966. However, the current
designation system was adopted following the 1991 ratification
of a comprehensive plan called the Protocol on Environmental
Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.
Entry into an ASPA requires a permit. The areas are under
protection for a variety of reasons, according to Kevin
Pettway, the environmental lead at McMurdo Station. His
job during the 2007-08 season involved doing much of the
legwork for the ASPA management plan updates.
Some areas are home to unique species, such as at Linnaeus
Terrace, a roughly 3-square-kilometer site near the McMurdo
Dry Valleys. Organisms known as cryptoendolithics, which
reside within rocks or coral or other impossible places,
live in abundance at Linnaeus Terrace in the basalt rock.
At Cape Royds on Ross Island lives the most southerly
colony of Adélie penguins. Both sites are among
the six under review.
Pettway not only visits some of the ASPAs to collect
information, but also discusses management practices with
the scientists who work in the areas. He wants to know
things like whether boundaries need to grow or shrink
because of the movement of species.
“It’s a high-profile project,” Pettway
said.
Scientists David Ainley and Grant Ballard spend the austral
summer among Adélie penguin colonies on and near
Ross Island, where McMurdo Station sits. Both men say
the ASPA designations are important to control human traffic
through the sensitive areas they study.
“I think we would see visitors more often for sure
[without the ASPA],” said Ballard, a researcher with
PRBO Conservation Science in Petaluma, Calif., and who
works mainly at Crozier. “I don’t think visitors
are inherently bad, but it would add a whole other level
of complexity to managing our project and making sure
that there wasn’t an impact.”
While tourism in Antarctica is steadily growing —
the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators
(IAATO) estimates that more than 37,000 tourists visited
the continent during the 2006-07 summer season —
only a small fraction of tourists visit ASPA sites in
the Ross Sea.
The most popular is Cape Royds, where Ainley has worked
for a number of years. However, Ainley is not so much
concerned with tourists, as he is in overfishing in the
areas where the penguins forage. He said the current ASPA
boundary for Royds extends about 500 meters off shore,
and the current management plan says the penguins forage
there. In reality, those penguins forage at least 20 kilometers
away from the colony, and more than 30 kilometers when
food is scarce, according to Ainley.
“I would like to see the entire Ross Sea protected
— but I would be dreaming,” said Ainley, a researcher
with the ecological consulting firm H.T. Harvey and Associates
in California. “It’s been pretty easy to protect
the Antarctic continent, but it’s nearly impossible
to protect the Southern Ocean.”
Ballard said that the penguin research team has data
from satellite tags that show the extent of the foraging
areas. He worries about the sort of ecological disaster
posed should a vessel sink, like what happened earlier
in the season when a cruise ship went down off the Antarctic
Peninsula in less than 48 hours.
“It would be nice to protect the area that [the
Ross Sea penguins] actually use and need for breeding,
which includes their foraging area,” Ballard explained.
With a colony of some half-million birds, the marine boundary
to protect Crozier could easily extend 200 kilometers,
he added.
Biletnikoff said his department is currently working
on four different options for the Cape Royds ASPA, which
could include changing the current boundaries. He declined
to give specifics at this time until a final decision
is made.
While ASPA sites in the Dry Valleys are also experiencing
more tourist visits, Biletnikoff noted that the management
plans are really to minimize impacts from science and
operation activities.
“We’re trying to protect the areas from our
own grantees and operations personnel, primarily, because
those are actually the predominant numbers that visit
these areas,” he said. Other national Antarctic programs
also operate within the ASPA sites, such as New Zealand
and Italy.
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