A square peg in a round hole: fitting impact assessment under the Antarctic Environmental Protocol to Antarctic tourism

Abstract

The 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty develops and codifies Antarctic environmental impact assessment (EIA) obligations. This paper outlines the history and present nature of Antarctic EIA obligations and reviews the emergence of Antarctic tourism. The Treaty explicitly recognises the primacy of Antarctica's scientific and environmental values, whereas tourism, while a legitimate activity, is not otherwise an embedded Antarctic activity. The difficulties of applying an EIA system which has evolved primarily to deal with national programme activities to the different activities of commercial tourism is not an argument for absolving tourist activities from these obligations. If tourism activities are not adequately addressed, the impacts may not be appropriately considered and could pose unacceptable risks to an environment supposedly legally safeguarded by international treaty.