Increasing Environmental Vigilance Could Chill Research In Antarctica

Polar scientists worry that new international interests might threaten their ability to do good science in the future The ability of polar scientists to do research may be jeopardized by the political winds swirling around the world's last frontier, say Antarctic science veterans. For most of the past three decades, scientists dominated the setting of policy in Antarctica. But researchers are worried that the current discussions about Antarctica's future could threaten the basic tenets of the 30-year-old Antarctic Treaty, which guarantees scientific freedom (see story on page 6). History shows that science once was the driving force behind Antarctic policies. But the present state of affairs suggests that the role of science is diminishing. In 1959, one year after the International Geophysical Year opened this icy frontier to science, the Antarctic Treaty was written by the dozen nations involved in that research. Ratified two years later, it established Antarctica as a place for peaceful activities and called for cooperative and unfettered scientific investigation there. Such investigations would share personnel, plans, observations, and results. For more than a decade, research there proceeded along those lines. In 1970, for example, President Nixon praised Antarctica as "the only continent where science serves as the principal expression of national policy and interest." In a speech delivered before the United Nations, Nixon remarked that "science has provided a successful basis for international accord." Today this harmony is threatened. At the end of this year, the signers of the 1959 treaty have the right to request that the original pact be reviewed for possible changes. At the same time, the nations of the world have been embroiled in a bitter argument over how to handle exploration for minerals and, alternatively, how strict environmental protection should be. Most polar scientists believe that they have done a good job as resource managers. They helped push through such protective international policies such as the Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora in 1964, the 1972 Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals, and the 1980 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. But now "resource management is being dominated by people other than scientists," says Paul Berkman, research associate at Byrd Polar Research Center in Columbus, Ohio. When negotiations began eight years ago to establish rules for oil and minerals exploration, consensus proved much harder to reach than with previous agreements. France and Australia balked at such rules and, instead, proposed a treaty that would prohibit such exploration (The Scientist, Nov. 13, 1989, page 2). That proposal was tabled during an international meeting late last year in Chile, but other environmental measures are going to be discussed next month at a meeting in Madrid, Spain. Such uncertainty concerns researchers. "The whole mining question scares the daylights out of me," says Peter J. Anderson, assistant director of the Byrd Center. Although large mineral deposits have yet to be discovered in Antarctic, the existence of more than 60 research bases on this continent signals that many countries have found it in their interest to have a presence there, just in case. "A lot of nations have the expectation that there is a huge pot of gold there that's going to save all their economic problems," says Anderson. "It's got the potential to be a very volatile situation." --E.P. Chief among their concerns are a rise in environmental vigilance and growing national interests in the region. These developments are forcing researchers to take a hard look at what they must do to make themselves heard in this changing international arena. "The whole environmental thing has become very difficult," says polar geologist Robert Rutford, president of the University of Texas at Dallas. "We've made some mistakes, but what has to be found is some middle ground." Scientists such as Kenneth Jezek, director of the Byrd Polar Research Center in Columbus, Ohio, acknowledge that the environmental problems that have built up over the years are due, in part, to a laissez-faire environmental attitude on the part of themselves and their colleagues. In the early years of the United States' base at McMurdo Sound, which was established in 1956, it was not uncommon for researchers to jettison their garbage, their temporary shelters, their fuel drums, and any other material that they no longer needed. "There was no mechanism for doing anything but throwing it in the snow," says Jezek. That no longer happens. Scientists nowadays are careful to take home everything they bring to the frozen continent. But the concerns of many polar scientists go beyond the physical environment and extend to the climate for doing research there. "The thing that bothers scientists is that there has been the suggestion of preapproval of science projects by some supergroup that is as of yet undefined, based on some unknown criteria," says Rutford, who chairs the National Research Council's Polar Research Board. Some observers say this could lead to approval of research projects according to their impact on the environment rather than the value of the proposed science. "You may end up getting rid of the best science in the name of environmental conservation," says Tucker Scully, director of the Office of Oceans at the U.S. State Department. Scientists are also concerned that their ability to do research could fall victim to the acrimonious debate between those forces who want to tap the region's economic potential and those who seek to preserve its pristine state through stringent controls on all activity. The latest tension has emerged during efforts to establish controls on minerals exploration. If that happens, says Jezek, seismic studies for determining sedimentary structure could be considered "exploration for oil and gas. There is no difference." Even ice core drilling, he says, could be considered exploration because coring extends into bedrock. Such scientific studies, he explains, are needed to understand how the continent figures into global change because studies of its geological record reveal how it was altered during previous periods of change. Many scientists say they don't mind that the issue of control comes up in a discussion of the fate of Antarctica. But what they want to know, Jezek says, is "who decides?" For a long time, the answer was the National Science Foundation and the other scientific bodies that have set the agenda for what should be done in the region. Their policies are conveyed during international negotiations through the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), based in Cambridge, England, which serves as a committee of the International Council of Scientific Unions. The role of SCAR was nearly ignored last December at an international meeting in Chile in which new policies to manage Antarctica were proposed. Documents introduced at the conference, says Peter D. Clarkson, a geologist at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge and executive secretary of SCAR, "made no special reference anywhere that the advice of SCAR must be included. If we had not made our stand at that point, SCAR might have been quietly forgotten." The incident has led some researchers to conclude that the current organizational structure of SCAR may not be adequate to preserve their ability to do good science. Jezek, for one, says the time has come to talk to his local member of Congress. "We've depended on NSF very much for being our advocates," he says. "But I'm not sure that's sufficient anymore." Nor can SCAR really get involved in international politics, says Rutford. That means it's up to individual scientists to present their side of the story. But Rutford sees this task as a difficult one because scientists lack the spokespeople and emotional appeal that environmental groups have tapped in the name of saving Antarctica. "For us to respond to those major public relations acts is extremely difficult," he adds. On the other side, environmentalists argue that the problems are real and that NSF has not moved quickly enough to correct such situations as an overflowing landfill and open-pit burning. "We believe their timetables keep slipping," says Bruce Manheim of the Environmental Defense Fund. "We do not mean to say that scientists are environmental culprits. The problem is with the agencies, not the individual scientists." A second concern for polar researchers is cost. In this remote environment, cleanup has proved quite expensive. Equally costly will be achieving the high standards for environmental protection that conservation activists are demanding. "It may come down to a question of economics, of time and money spent to prove that [a research project] is not high-risk," says Clarkson. Even without these environmental obligations, scientists are already concerned about how much more money is spent in the support structure of polar research rather than on the science itself. Last year, for example, the U.S. Antarctic program spent $17 million on science projects and another $24.3 million in direct science support, compared with $75.1 million on base maintenance and another $35.3 million on major construction and procurement projects. The federal government also spent $25 million on an environmental health and safety initiative, part of a five-year, $180 million effort to erase the ravages of the past. "It's our responsibility to try to maintain the environment in its natural state," says Ellen Mosley-Thompson, a climatologist at the Bryd Polar Research Center. "I see nothing wrong with expecting the scientific programs to adhere to some regulations. The problem is that it costs money. If more money has to go toward retrograding waste, there's less to go to science." As a consequence, some researchers predict NSF will tend to put its money into a few big projects, whose wastes would be easier to manage than those of many small projects. At the same time, some scientists believe that environmentalists have overstated the delicate nature of the Antarctic region. "It's not the environmental disaster that many people say it is," says Clarkson. And Rutford says that new rules and regulations on what will be permitted are being pushed through by people who have no true understanding of what conditions are really like in Antarctica. "We've worked there, and we recognize that it is not a fragile environment like most people talk about," Rutford explains. "It's plastic. It has a little bit of give, and scientific activity has to take place within that little bit of give." Whatever their stand on the environmental issues, however, polar scientists are realizing that they must speak up. "Whether they are conservative or liberal, green or nongreen, they need to be aware of what's going on and to make the Washington people aware of their thoughts and feelings," says Peter Anderson, assistant director of the Byrd Polar Research Center. Adds Paul Berkman, a research associate at the center, "The scientists, like non- government organizations or governments themselves, need to demand a level of participation in the system. At some level, there has to be an effective marriage between science, politics, and ecological insight."

Increasing Environmental Vigilance Could Chill Research In Antarctica

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