Is Antarctica on the Brink of Destruction?

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I believe that the current management of Antarctica is not quite adequate enough to protect this unique ecosystem. I think this because tourism is becoming very popular and mining or resource depletion will most likely start in the next 100 years.

Antarctica is a very important place because it shows information about how global warming and other related problems are affecting the earth. It is also a very special place because compared to the rest of the world it remains to be untouched by humans.

Many threats are affecting the Antarctic environment, including global warming, tourism, and the threat of resource depletion.

Physical features:

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Antarctica is the coldest and driest continent on earth, with temperatures as low as -65 degree’s in winter, along with being covered in metres of ice and snow.

Antarctica has a land mass of 14 million square kilometers (1.5 times as big as Australia). Antarctica is located south of the 65 degrees parallel of latitude and is almost entirely within the Antarctic Circle, and is very close to Chile and Russia. (McCauley, Brown and Mills, 2001)

Almost all of Antarctica (98%) is covered by an ice sheet, which averages at 1600 metres of thickness, however small amounts of the underlying bedrock do appear. Because of its untouched state Antarctica is full of mountains, ice shelves, valleys, and icebergs as shown in these pictures.

Antarctica’s climate consists of yearly average of -44 degrees, with a summer maximum of about -30, and a winter minimum of around -65 degrees. Because it is so cold, it hardly ever rains, only snows. Only hardy vegetation can survive.  35 species of birds and penguins, along with 6 species of seals, 12 species of whales, and 200 species of fish, call Antarctica home.

Ecology

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The most important animals in Antarctica are phytoplankton, such as krill (see picture below). These are important because they are the very start of the food chain, as everything will eat krill, even those at the very top, such as killer whales. Therefore, if you remove krill, the other species will die out because of starvation.

All these species depend on each other to survive; small fish eat the krill, seals eat the fish, whales then eat the seals, and the krill. This is shown by this diagram:

Human Impacts on Antarctica

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Humans first visited Antarctica on the 7th of February 1821. The first person to go to Antarctica was Captain John Davis, a sealer from the USA. Humans first went to Antarctica to explore this previously unexplored land, looking for animals to hunt, along with underground resources and minerals. Travelling in Antarctica was very tough, because they faced extreme cold and snow, along with a lack of food.