Tourist dilemma for polar scientists
Print Edition
MEETING and greeting thousands of tourists each year is getting in the way of scientific work, say researchers at China’s Great Wall Station in Antarctica.
This comes after polar scientists were host to nearly 100 Chinese tourists on the first day of the Chinese New Year.
The Great Wall Station, China’s first research base in Antarctica, is visited by thousands of tourists — including a growing number of Chinese — every Antarctic summer, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a station staff member.
But whether to continue to welcome tourists to the base on the Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, or instead devote their time to scientific work has become a dilemma for researchers.
“Emotionally, we should warmly welcome our compatriots who have come all the way to Antarctica,” the staff member was quoted.
“But on the other hand, the research station is not a tourist spot.”
The group arrived last Friday, the first day of the Year of the Horse, on a cruise ship from Ushuaia, Argentina.
Originally, passengers were told that it would not be possible to visit the station as staff would be unloading cargo from China’s Xuelong icebreaker, said Sun Youjun, CEO of tourism website easy2world.com, who was part of the group.
However, in the end, they managed to pay a visit and wish researchers Happy New Year as two members of the group knew the Xuelong captain and the head of the Great Wall Station, Sun wrote on his Sina Weibo microblog.
“Tourists took great care not to damage the environment and researchers at the Great Wall Station also welcomed a lot of visiting old friends during the holiday,” he wrote.
Experts have urged for regulations to be introduced as polar tourism has been gaining popularity in China, even though China hasn’t listed the Antarctic as a tourist destination for its citizens.
Antarctic trips carry risks to the local environment and tourists’ safety, and there is an urgent need for government agencies to coordinate to regulate the sector, an official from the State Oceanic Administration said.
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