Environment assignment help on: Polar regions

“Visitation to Polar Regions has increased in recent years. Despite advanced techniques in managing these environmentally sensitive areas, should government and/ or industry representatives prevent tourism activity in these regions?” Discuss.IntroductionTourism in Antarctica is a well established industry, with recent years seeing a rapid growth in the number of tourists visiting the continent (IAATO, 2005a). This growth has, for some years now, been the subject of growing concern amongst the participants in the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), tourist operators, nongovernmental organisations and academics alike. A number of researchers have raised the possibility that tourism in this fragile environment might be having quite specific impacts.

The regulatory regime that attempts to manage tourism and its effects in Antarctica has itself been the subject of recent analysis. While research into the effectiveness of the tourism management regime that regulates the industry in Antarctica has been, to date, relatively issue-specific, a number of legal issues associated with the enforceability of the regulatory system have been raised.

This thesis is intended to present a comprehensive study of the nature and adequacy of the current regulatory framework as it applies to tourism management in Antarctica. It is intended to build on recent and comparable research. The thesis is founded on the fundamental research question:

‘Is the current regulatory system for managing tourism in Antarctica adequate to protect the Antarctic environment?’The goal of the research is to examine, in some detail, the extent to which the current management framework for Antarctic tourism is adequate to manage the industry in the light of the values of the sites and potential impacts, and in the light of current use levels and short to medium forecasts of tourism growth. The degree to which improvements, or indeed alternatives, to the current system are necessary, and what those improvements/alternatives might be, is also examined and discussed.

The specific objectives of the research are to:

Þ    examine protected area tourism theory and management practice internationally by way of literature review

Þ    examine the current legal and regulatory tourism management system for tourism in Antarctica

Þ    review the history and development of tourism in Antarctica including recent developments in tourism product types and visit distribution

Þ    describe current industry use levels, spatial and temporal distribution, and current forecasts of future trends

Research Background

In terms of tourism and the regulatory systems that are set up to manage tourism, it can be said that there are four linked elements to any tourism situation; the tourism activities, the sites where that activity occurs, the actual and potential impacts of those activities at those sites, and the management responses to that suite of activities and impacts. This thesis is structured so as to provide a description of these linked elements as they are relevant to Antarctica. Firstly an examination of protected area tourism management theory is provided, following which the legal framework for Antarctic tourism management is discussed. Comparisons are drawn between the current Antarctic system and international practice. The tourism industry in Antarctica is then described. The key numerical, spatial and temporal attributes of the Antarctic tourism industry are presented and analyzed.The objective of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the general theoretical context to managing tourism in protected and wilderness areas. The aim of this is to enable readers to understand what issues, challenges and responses are discussed in the international literature, in order that a comprehensive understanding of the Antarctic system in the theoretical context can be made. In the most part this chapter is based on a comprehensive review of the international literature relating to managing recreation and tourism in protected and wilderness areas. Much of this is related to tourism/recreation management in the North American protected area system.

Analysis & Discussion

The chapter commences with a general overview of theoretical models for managing tourism in protected areas. Leading contemporary researchers and their work are introduced, as are definitional issues and a discussion on some limitations to the discussion. An ‘ideal’ model for a hierarchical regulatory system is presented and then described in detail. A brief comparison of the theoretical model with the current Antarctic model is discussed, in preparation for more in-depth discussions later in the thesis. The chapter has been set out so as to provide readers with a logical progression from general theory to more detailed theory and on to an introduction to the application of that theory to the Antarctic situation.In order to examine and discuss an improved tourism management system for Antarctica, it is therefore necessary to also examine, at least at a general level, how these key features interact in protected area management theory. This chapter presents and discusses the various planning approaches that have been developed in the international protected areas scene for the management of tourism and recreation activities. There are several objectives to this discussion. Firstly it is intended to introduce to readers the generic principles of managing tourism in protected areas.

This is so that the discussion that will follow in this thesis regarding the role of planning in current and potential regulatory frameworks for tourism in Antarctica can properly be placed in the context of how management of tourism is approached internationally for protected areas. A second objective is to introduce possible management approaches and theories that have been applied elsewhere, or have been suggested be applied for Antarctica (e.g. Davis, 1999), in order that they be understood in the concluding sections of this thesis that relate to the design of an improved regulatory framework for Antarctica. Lastly it is considered important to examine and discuss the limitations that might affect the application of international theoretical models of tourism/recreation management in protected areas, to the Antarctic situation.

LegislationThe first important aspect of the theoretical model is the grounding in a sound legislative framework (Eagles, McCool & Haynes, 2002). This theme is a common thread to the literature examined, and is important in the Antarctic situation. As will be shown later in this thesis, the current legal foundation for managing tourism in Antarctica is reported as being uncertain and unclear (e.g. Joyner, 1998). The goals and objectives that are developed as an early step common to all of the models will inevitably have their basis in the legal objectives of the jurisdictional legal framework. In the case of Antarctica this framework, while different in many ways from those of sovereign nations elsewhere, still would appear to require clear objectives for the management of the continent.

Policies

Many international management models use formal policies as a means to interpret the relevant legislation into the context of the situation at hand (Pedersen, 2002). An example of this is the New Zealand “General Policy for National Parks” (NZCA, 2005) and the “Conservation General Policy” (DoC, 2005). Both these documents provide guidance for managers and public (and industry participants) regarding such things as the siting of accommodation facilities and the provision of recreational opportunities. In most cases these policies formally inform management plans and strategies, and provide valuable guidance to management participants.

Management Strategies and Plans

Newsome et al. describe planning for visitors are being “the process of setting goals and then developing the actions needed to achieve them”, and further, “…the basic task of planning is to visualise the area, that is, the product, as visitors and managers wish it to be in the future” (2002, p. 147). A review of the recent literature observes the development and existence of a wide variety of visitor management systems, largely occurring in the North American protected area system since the 1970s (Eagles & McCool, 2002). These various models have been developed in an attempt to provide protected area managers with planning tools that can enable them to produce management plans and other statements of desired goals, objective and desired outcomes, upon which management actions can be based. A variety of approaches exist, with Eagles & McCool (2002) and Newsome et. al. (2002) both noting and analysing at least six different models. Examples include the LAC model (Stankey, Cole, Lucas, Petersen and Frissell, 1985) and the Visitor Experience and Resource Protection Framework VERP (USDA, 1997). The commentators note that all of the models have been applied in part or in whole in various protected areas around the world with varying levels of acceptance and success.

Management Actions

The development and application of planning frameworks is only part of the picture with respect to managing tourism in protected areas. The other part is the issue of the interaction between the planning frameworks and management actions. Hammitt & Cole (1998) make a significant point of this, describing the relationship between the formulation of goals and objectives for protected areas, and the management actions required to achieve those goals. Newsome et al (2002) and Eagles & McCool (2002) also examine this issue. This is an important issue in that it links the planning for outcomes (which several researchers have argued is a missing but needed activity in Antarctica) and the achievement of those outcomes through a regulatory regime. The author has argued previously (Maher, 2004) that planning for protected areas must inextricably be linked to decisions about how those goals and objectives will be realised though action.The Antarctic is to all intents and purposes a protected area, with a tourism regulatory system. It would seem logical therefore to assume that the generally accepted ‘ideal’ attributes of a tourism management system for a protected area as identified from the literature review, and as observed from international protected areas practice, should also be in place for the Antarctic where legally possible. Some elements of such a system are in place already (e.g. some of the indirect management techniques have been implemented through the ATS and by self-regulation by IAATO) but it appears that the application of these principles to Antarctica has by no means been done in a structured, comprehensive or even conscious manner. The introduction of all the appropriate components of an ‘ideal’ management and regulatory system to Antarctica is considered necessary.

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