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 Editorials | Environmental | November 2007 
Antarctica: Accidents Will Happen - So Be Prepared
 Marcela Valente - IPS
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Buenos Aires - The second accident this year involving a cruiseliner in the Antarctic is alarming the countries that protect and conserve the frozen continent, which are persisting in their demands for penalties in cases of disasters that cause pollution.
Mariano Mémoli, the head of the National Antarctic Directorate at the Argentine Foreign Ministry, told IPS "we are extremely concerned by the frequency of these accidents, but the other countries, which are also alarmed, are taking their time about signing laws to defend the environment."
The debate has reignited because the M/S Explorer, a tourist cruise ship, collided with an iceberg close to the South Shetland Islands, north of the Antarctic Peninsula, shortly after five a.m. on Friday. The 154 people on board, passengers and crew, were taken off in lifeboats and inflatable dinghies, and the damaged ship was left listing at an angle of 45º.
"The touchiest issue here is the environment," Mémoli said. "Although the fuel storage compartments are intact, the fuel will have to be removed and the bunkers can never be completely cleaned out, so there will be some pollution, however limited." The liner was carrying 185 tons of fuel, and the first assessments agreed that towing it would be risky and costly. A possible solution might be to surround it with booms to contain any possible spillage, and suction out as much fuel as possible.
Mémoli said that the diesel oil carried by the cruiser is a light fuel, most of which will evaporate, but the residue is highly toxic and soluble in water. "This is an area of high biological value, with penguins, seals, elephant seals, and a range of fish and bird species," he said.
The ship, 73 metres in length and with a beam of 14 metres, flies the Liberian flag. It was built in Finland and is operated by GAP Adventures, a Canadian tourist company. Its passengers and crew were rescued from their lifeboats and taken aboard the Norwegian ship NordNorge, which took them to the Chilean Eduardo Frei research base on King George Island, from where they were flown to southern Chile.
Most of the passengers, who paid an average 8,000 dollars for the cruise, were from the UK, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Australia.
An Argentine crew member, Andrea Salas, told a radio station that there was no panic during the transfer to the lifeboats because the weather was favourable, with no wind. However they experienced extreme cold for almost three hours while they were in the lifeboats, wet through, and in heavy seas.
A communiqué from GAP Adventure said the Explorer "ran into some ice off King George Island, and the result was a hole about the size of a fist in the side of the hull." Spokesman for the Argentine navy Captain Juan Panichini said that the Explorer was listing "at a critical angle" on Friday midday, and that its sinking appeared "inevitable."
Salas said that collisions with ice "were normal" and did not disturb the passengers, until several people came up from their cabins, wet and shouting "The water’s coming in!" Then they were informed that the cruiseliner had hit ice, the situation was under control, but they should all evacuate immediately.
This is the second accident involving cruiseliners this year in the Antarctic. The first occurred in late January, when the Norwegian ship Nordkapp went aground with nearly 300 tourists and 76 crew members aboard, in the rocky area of Neptune’s Bellows off Deception Island. It spilled nearly 700 litres of diesel fuel in an area frequented by killer whales (orcas), penguins and cormorants.
Previous to these two misfortunes, the most recent accident was in 1989, when the Argentine naval vessel Bahía Paraíso, with tourists and scientists on board, was grounded off Anvers Island near the U.S. base Palmer Station. The resulting oil slick extending for 100 square kilometres caused serious damages to a number of species.
Biologists at Agentina’s Southern Scientific Research Centre (CADIC) in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, say that while the 14 million square miles of the Antarctic continent is a frozen desert, its coasts harbour a wealth of fauna and a unique flora of mosses and lichens which are severely damaged by trampling because reproduction conditions are so difficult.
The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) estimates that passengers on the few ships visiting the Antarctic in the late 1960s numbered a few hundred a year or less, whereas now there are over 32,000 a year.
Tourists come from many different countries and embark at Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina’s most southerly province, located 1,000 kilometres north of the Antarctic Peninsula. The cruisers usually sail round some islands and the tourists enjoy sighting various animals. The passengers seldom land.
However, the passage of ships through rocky areas with icebergs in motion and extreme climate conditions, including strong winds, rough seas and sub-zero temperatures even in summer, increases the risks of shipwrecks and other accidents which may not be fatal, but still leave their mark.
A series of legal instruments created to preserve the environment are part of the Antarctic Treaty System. The principal convention is the Antarctic Treaty itself. Argentina, which has maintained a presence on Antarctica for over 100 years, is an active party to this treaty, which was signed on Dec. 1, 1959 and entered into force in 1961.
The treaty stipulates that Antarctica is only to be used for peaceful purposes, like research. The 28 signatory countries promised to promote international scientific cooperation, keep the environment pristine, and not use the continent for military bases or weapons testing.
In 1991 the same group of countries approved the Madrid Protocol on Environmental Protection to give teeth to the goal of preserving the continent, and in 2005, in view of the surge in Antarctic tourism, an Annex on "Liability Arising from Environmental Emergencies" was added. This is still awaiting ratification by some countries and has therefore not yet entered into force.
The aim of the annex, which Antarctic system countries are impatient to see implemented, is to "prevent, minimise and contain the impact of environmental emergencies on Antarctic ecosystems," by insisting that tour operators be prepared to take "prompt and effective response action" in case of environmental damage arising from their activities.
Failure to do so would render the operator liable to pay the full cost of clean-up actions undertaken by the states. The annex also proposes the creation of a fund to finance such actions, to be administered by the Treaty secretariat based in Buenos Aires. |
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