Tourism influxSteady increase in visitors at South Pole has USAP weighing alternativesPosted November 6, 2008
The South Pole’s most famous visitor didn’t offer a very encouraging description of 90 degrees south when he and his team arrived on Jan. 17, 1912. “Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well, it is something to have got here …” Capt. Robert F. Scott recorded in his diary, devastated to have lost the race to the Pole to Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Scott and his companions later perished on their return journey. These days the South Pole is home to a new U.S. research station — officially called Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station But scientists aren’t the only ones attracted to the Pole. A handful of tourists venture south each year, and the number, while modest, has quadrupled in the last five years. The number has climbed steadily from 40 during the 2003-04 season to 164 (which includes repeated visits by pilots) last year, according to statistics kept by South Pole Station Support Supervisor Beth Watson. “The burden that increasing tourism is placing on station personnel and resources has the U.S. Antarctic Program The tourist season lasts from roughly early December to late January, a period of about 50 days. “There’s this block of [time] that we find they’re coming, and they come and they come,” noted Jerry Marty, the NSF’s representative at the South Pole who oversaw the construction of the new South Pole Station over the last decade, an elevated structure that can house 154 scientists and support personnel. The official dedication was held in January. “Personally, I think it was a surprise. I think it was to all of us at the station. It’s one of those unknowns that we hadn’t expected,” he said of the rise in visitors. While perhaps unexpected, the NSF has official policies and procedures in place to handle visitors, or what it calls non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or non-governmental activities (NGAs). The official policy states that, “The U.S. Government is not able to offer support or other service to private expeditions, U.S. or foreign, in Antarctica.” The South Pole itself is an Antarctic Specially Managed Area (ASMA) |