File photo of a tourist taking pictures of penguins on the Antartic Peninsula Antarctic scientists warned Wednesday that a surge in tourists visiting the frozen continent and new roads and runways built to service research facilities were threatening its fragile environment. 
 
 Tourist numbers have exploded from less than 5,000 in 1990 to about 40,000 a year, according to industry figures, and most people go to the fragmented ice-free areas that make up less than one percent of Antarctica. 
 
 A growing number of research facilities are also being built, along with associated infrastructure such as fuel depots and runways, in the tiny ice-free zones. 
 
 It is these areas which contain most of the continent's wildlife and plants, yet they are among the planet's least-protected, said a study led by the Australian government-funded National Environmental Research Programme (NERP) and the Australian Antarctic Division. 
 
 "Many people think that Antarctica is well protected from threats to its biodiversity because it's isolated and no one lives there," said Justine Shaw from the NERP of the study published in the journal PLoS Biology. 
 
 "However, we show that there are threats to Antarctic biodiversity. 
 
 "Most of Antarctica is covered in ice, with less than one percent permanently ice-free," she added. 
 
 "Only 1.5 percent of this ice-free area belongs to Antarctic Specially Protected Areas under the Antarctic Treaty System, yet ice-free land is where the majority of biodiversity occurs." 
 
 Five of the distinct ice-free areas have no protection at all while all 55 of the continent's protected zones are close to sites of human activity. 
 
 Fragile ecosystems 
 
 Antarctic scientists warn that a surge in tourists visiting the frozen continent was threatening its fragile environment and called for better protection 
 
 Steven Chown of Monash University, another collaborator in the study, said the ice-free areas contain very simple ecosystems due to Antarctica's low species diversity. 
 
 This makes its native wildlife and plants extremely vulnerable to invasion by outside species, which can be introduced by human activity. 
 
 "Antarctica has been invaded by plants and animals, mostly grasses and insects, from other continents," he said. 
 
 "The very real current and future threats from invasions are typically located close to protected areas. 
 
 "Such threats to protected areas from invasive species have been demonstrated elsewhere in the world, and we find that Antarctica is, unfortunately, no exception." 
 
 The study said the current level of protection was "inadequate by any measure" with Shaw saying more was needed to guard against the threat posed by the booming tourism industry. 
 
 "(We need) to protect a diverse suite of native insects, plants and seabirds, many of which occur nowhere else in the world," she said. 
 
 "We also need to ensure that Antarctic protected areas are not going to be impacted by human activities, such as pollution, trampling or invasive species." 
 
 Tourist numbers have exploded from less than 5,000 in 1990 to about 40,000 a year, according to industry figures, and most people go to the fragmented ice-free areas that make up less than one percent of Antarctica 
 
 Antarctica is considered one of the last frontiers for adventurous travellers. 
 
 Most travel by sea, some paying in excess of US$20,000 for a luxury cabin in the peak period from November to March. There is also a healthy market for sightseeing flights. 
 
 Approximately 30 nations operate permanent research stations on the continent including the US, China, Russia, Australia, Britain, France and Argentina, and more are on the way. 
 
 China's state media said in December that the country was building its fourth base and a fifth was being planned. 
 
 Fellow study author Hugh Possingham, from NERP, said that without better protection "this unique and fragile ecosystem could be lost". 
 
 "Although we show that the risks to biodiversity from increasing human activity are high, they are even worse when considered together with climate change," he added. 
 
 "This combined effect provides even more incentive for a better system of area protection in Antarctica." 
 
 Explore further: Divide the Antarctic to protect native species, propose experts 
 
 More information: "Antarctica's protected areas are inadequate, unrepresentative and at risk," Justine D. Shaw, Aleks Terauds, Martin J. Riddle, Hugh P. Possingham and Steven L. Chown, PLoS Biology. www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001888 
 
 

 Abstract Antarctica is widely regarded as one of the planet's last true wildernesses, insulated from threat by its remoteness and declaration as a natural reserve dedicated to peace and science. However, rapidly growing human activity is accelerating threats to biodiversity. We determined how well the existing protected-area system represents terrestrial biodiversity and assessed the risk to protected areas from biological invasions, the region's most significant conservation threat. We found that Antarctica is one of the planet's least protected regions, with only 1.5% of its ice-free area formally designated as specially protected areas. Five of the distinct ice-free ecoregions have no specially designated areas for the protection of biodiversity. Every one of the 55 designated areas that protect Antarctica's biodiversity lies closer to sites of high human activity than expected by chance, and seven lie in high-risk areas for biological invasions. By any measure, including Aichi Target 11 under the Convention on Biological Diversity, Antarctic biodiversity is poorly protected by reserves, and those reserves are threatened. 
 
 Citation: Shaw JD, Terauds A, Riddle MJ, Possingham HP, Chown SL (2014) Antarctica’s Protected Areas Are Inadequate, Unrepresentative, and at Risk. PLoS Biol 12(6): e1001888. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001888 Published: June 17, 2014 Copyright: © 2014 Shaw et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was supported by the Environmental Decision Hub (National Environment Research Program Australia) and Australian Antarctic Science Project 4024. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Abbreviations: ACBR, Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Region; ASPA, Antarctic Specially Protected Area; ATS, Antarctic Treaty System; CBD, Convention on Biological Diversity 
 
 Introduction With no permanent human settlements and science and tourism as the only land-based industries, Antarctica is under lower direct human pressure than any other continent. Its landscapes are recognized globally as the most pristine [1],[2] and can rightly be regarded part of the “last of the wild” [3]. Under the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), through which the region is governed [4], the whole continent has been designated a “natural reserve, devoted to peace and science” [5]. Annex V of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol) also makes provision for special protection of areas. Currently, 73 such Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) have been designated under nine categories (Table S1) representing their cultural, physical, or ecological values. Consequently, it is widely believed that the terrestrial Antarctic is more than adequately protected [6],[7]. In this perspective, we provide evidence that shows this is not the case. 
 
 Why Protect Terrestrial Antarctica? The majority of Antarctica's biodiversity is concentrated in ice-free areas. While there is life outside of these areas [8],[9], biodiversity and human activity are much higher within them. For these reasons, we focus on the protection of ice-free environments. Threats to the ecological integrity of Antarctica are accelerating because of a growing variety, intensity, and frequency of human activities and rapidly changing climates or forecasts for such change [10]–[12]. Biological invasions are most significant, with several established populations already having a variety of observed impacts [13]–[15]. Human activities in Antarctica typically take two forms: the activities of National Antarctic Programs (i.e., scientists and their support personnel) and those that take place as part of fee-paying recreation (i.e., tourists and their support personnel). Activities associated with science include construction of buildings, roads, fuel depots, and runways. Growing instances of unintentional damage are also being recorded, such as the establishment of harmful nonindigenous species, sewage spills, point source pollution, and destruction of vegetation [13],[16]–[19]. All human activities, be they tourism- or science-related, have increased considerably over the last 20 years and are predicted to continue to do so [20]. Protected areas are generally effective in reducing threats to biodiversity and regarded as the cornerstone of conservation [21]. Their efficacy is enhanced substantially when they are representative of the biodiversity of a region [22]. This is recognised by the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, which has set 17% of terrestrial land area protected as the most recent target (Aichi Target 11) [23]. The Madrid Protocol likewise recognizes the significance of representative protected areas, calling for ASPAs to be identified “within a systematic environmental-geographic framework” and include “representative examples of major…ecosystems” [24]. Given that conservation threats to terrestrial Antarctica are growing, that protected areas are a cornerstone of conservation, and that a network of specially protected areas is already considered a key tool in the conservation management of Antarctica, we assess the effectiveness of this network in a contemporary global context. How representative is this network and, compared with other areas of Antarctica, how high are the risks to the network of nonindigenous species invasion, which at present pose the greatest conservation threat to the region [2],[25]? Our assessment was conducted in three steps. We quantified the proportion of ice-free land that is protected, as this is where the majority of Antarctic biodiversity occurs; examined its representativeness using recently developed protected-area assessment metrics [26]; and quantified the level of threat these protected areas face from biological invasion using information from a recent, spatially explicit risk assessment (see Methods S1 for details of data sources and analytical methods) [25]. 
 
 Protected Areas at Risk of Invasion In terms of risk, the mean distances of ASPAs to tourist landing sites and scientific activity (i.e., established scientific facilities) are 289 km (range: 0 km to 2406 km) and 64 km (range: 0 km to 832 km), respectively, significantly closer than expected for the same number of randomly selected ice-free sites (Figure 3). Seven of the 55 ASPAs, all of which are on the Antarctic Peninsula, are at high risk of nonindigenous species establishment (Figure S2) (risk exceeds 50%, according to Chown et al. [25]), overlapping with high-risk areas for nonindigenous species establishment identified previously [25]. Overall, the mean risk index of establishment of nonindigenous species for ASPAs is 12% (standard error ±5%), significantly higher (by 24 times) than the mean risk for a randomly selected set of ice-free locations (0.5% ±0.1%, χ2 = 86.1, p<0.0001). PPT PowerPoint slide 
 
 PowerPoint slide PNG larger image ( ) 
 
 larger image ( ) TIFF original image ( ) Download: Figure 3. Graphical comparisons of bootstrapped data (histogram) and actual mean distances (image with blue arrow). (A) Distance of ASPAs to tourist landings. Image credit: Aleks Terauds. (B) Distance of ASPAs to landings associated with national programs. Image credit: Dana Bergstrom. Histograms show frequency distribution of 10,000 by means of 55 locations sampled from 1,000 randomly generated, spatial, ice-free locations. Mean distances to ASPAs for both tourists and scientists are well outside the fifth percentile of the histogram (p<0.05), indicating that visitor landings are significantly closer to ASPAs than would be expected by chance. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001888.g003 
 
 A Natural Reserve, Devoted to Peace and Science? In a global context, the designation of Antarctica as “a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science” under the ATS is unique; no other continent has a similar level of apparent protection [6]. This situation may be at least partly responsible for Antarctica's repeated exclusion from global assessments of protected-area effectiveness [26],[28],[29]. However, its apparent protection status reflects management intent, not management outcome [30]. Although the Antarctic environment is less utilised and populated than others, activities permitted on the continent (e.g., road and building construction, vehicle traffic, waste disposal) are having substantial impacts on biodiversity [12],[18],[19]. Aichi Target 11 of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 [23] aims for “at least 17% of terrestrial and inland water areas” to be protected to ensure conservation of biodiversity. Globally, 13% of terrestrial areas are protected [31]. By comparison, only 1.5% of ice-free terrestrial Antarctica (0.005% of the total continental area) is formally protected for the purposes of biodiversity conservation. Aichi Target 11 also calls for the global protected-area network to be ecologically representative. Again, Antarctica fails to meet this benchmark. In addition to representing the biodiversity of a given region, protected areas should also safeguard biodiversity from threatening processes [32]. In Antarctica, however, protected areas are significantly closer to sites of human activity than would be expected by chance. This is partly a product of the history of protected-area designation. Such proximity elevates threat, given that human population density adjacent to protected areas is the most significant predictor of their invasive species richness, both in the broader Antarctic region [33] and elsewhere [34]. Moreover, two of the ASPAs at high risk of invasion already support nonindigneous species [14],[35]. 
 
 The Way Forward Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity is concentrated in the continent's relatively small and fragmented ice-free areas. Increasing human activity and risk to biodiversity is also concentrated in these areas, and the total area accorded the additional protection conferred by ASPA status is small. Of the 73 ASPAs, only 55 (688 km2) occur in ice-free areas and have recognised terrestrial biodiversity values. In consequence, while there is a widespread general perception that Antarctica is well conserved, in practice conservation of terrestrial biodiversity from a continent-wide perspective is poorly served by the protected-area system. Therefore, what is required now is a systematic network designed to best conserve the biodiversity of Antarctica as a whole. Once a protected area is designated and human activity restricted, management efforts are relatively minimal compared to protected-area management requirements globally [36]. Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have agreed to improve global protection of biodiversity by encouraging nations to meet the Aichi Targets by 2020. Although Antarctica is excluded from the provisions of the CBD, we believe that the Aichi Targets should be met for the region. For a continent that is so little impacted by human activity compared with the rest of the planet, achieving an objective that has already been attained by several nations should be straightforward for those who manage the region under the Antarctic Treaty System.
– The fanny-pack set is now the bane of even Antarctica's existence: A new study published in PLoS Biology is warning that, yes, tourists are threatening the frigid environment of the globe's least populated continent. "Many people think that Antarctica is well protected from threats to its biodiversity because it's isolated and no one lives there," a study author tells Phys.org. That may have once been true, but tourism has exploded over the course of the past two and a half decades, from 5,000 annually in 1990 to about 40,000 currently. Those numbers, combined with a burgeoning number of research facilities and the infrastructure they require, are wreaking havoc on a vulnerable habitat. There are a couple of factors at work, among them the fact that humans are swarming to the ice-free areas that make up less than 1% of Antarctica. Those zones—of which only 1.5% is protected by international treaty—contain the majority of the continent's native species, which are relatively few in number. As a result, says another researcher, "Antarctica has been invaded by plants and animals, mostly grasses and insects, from other continents." Current protections are "inadequate by any measure," says the study.