The challenging rescue operation launched after a Russian ship became trapped in Antarctic pack ice last month shows the inherent risks facing the frozen continent’s burgeoning tourist industry, experts say.
Antarctica represents one of the last frontiers for adventurous travelers, an icy wonderland of glaciers, emperor penguins and seemingly endless white expanses.
However, as those aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy found out, blizzards, icebergs and treacherous seas are also a fact of life at one of the most remote locations on Earth, where help is often thousands of kilometers away.
Photo: AFP
“It does indeed serve as a reminder that it’s an extreme environment that we’re dealing with, whether it’s scientific expeditions going down there, or tourism cruises,” said Daniela Liggett, a specialist in Antarctic tourism regulation at New Zealand’s Canterbury University.
Tourist numbers in Antarctica have grown from less than 5,000 in 1990, to about 35,000 a year, according to industry figures.
Most visitors reach the world’s southernmost continent by sea, with some paying in excess of US$20,000 for a luxury cabin during the peak period from November to March.
Photo: AFP
There is also a healthy market for sightseeing flights, despite an incident in 1979 in which an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 passengers on board.
The first recorded tourist ship to the region was an Argentine vessel, Les Eclaireurs, which made the voyage with 100 paying passengers in 1958.
Since then, there have been concerns about tourists’ potential impact on the untamed wilderness and the difficulty rescuers would face reaching a ship if it hit serious trouble in the freezing waters.
“What’s unique to the Antarctic is that it’s very remote and if something happens to a bigger ship, then it will be almost impossible to rescue all the passengers in a timely fashion,” Liggett said.
With conventional rescue services so far away, the task of helping stricken vessels often falls to the scientific missions, disrupting their carefully planned research programs.
French Polar Institute director Yves Frenot was furious last week that French, Chinese and Australian ships in Antarctica were diverted from scientific work for the Shokalskiy rescue.
“There’s no reason to place Antarctica off-limits and to keep it just for scientists, but this tourism has to be monitored and regulated so that operators can be sure of getting help if need be,” he told reporters.
The headaches posed by Antarctic rescue operations were demonstrated when, after the Shokalskiy became mired in the ice on Dec. 24 last year, Chinese icebreaker Xue Long (雪龍, Snow Dragon) became trapped itself while trying to help.
The two ships only managed to free themselves on Tuesday, by which time yet another vessel, the US Coast Guard’s Polar Star, was steaming to their aid from Sydney, Australia.
Half of the 52 people rescued from the Shokalskiy were paying passengers and Frenot labeled the voyage a “pseudo-scientific expedition” — a charge denied by its Australian organizers.
The organizers said that their mission was to examine environmental changes by replicating measurements taken in the area a century ago by explorer Douglas Mawson.
Ligget said that the Shokalskiy had traveled into an area not normally frequented by tourist or scientific ships, which contributed to it becoming trapped and complicated its rescue.
She said that cruise ships approved by industry body, International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators usually travel in pairs, so they can rely on the “buddy system” if one experiences difficulties.
She said that the association has done a good job of minimizing the environmental impact of Antarctic tourism.
“It’s essentially the scenery, the wildlife and a relatively unspoiled environment that they’re selling to their tourists,” she said. “So it’s in their best interests to keep it that way.”
Association spokeswoman Amanda Lynnes said that tourist ships adopted strict decontamination measures to prevent travellers from taking non-native species or microbes ashore.
She added that ships carrying more than 500 passengers did not put tourists ashore, while those on smaller vessels who did land had to follow guidelines designed to protect flora and fauna.
In addition, ships must employ officers with Antarctic experience and have plans to contain any oil leaks.
Lynnes said that tourism can act as a driving force in conservation by giving people first-hand experience of the Antarctic.
“Visitors to Antarctica ... return home as ambassadors of goodwill, guardianship and the value of peaceful cooperation in this great wilderness,” she said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”