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The Antarctic terrestrial environment is under increasing pressure from human activities. The Fildes Region is characterized by high biodiversity, but is also a major logistic centre for the northern Antarctic Peninsula. Different interests, from scientific research, nature conservation, protection of geological and historical values, station operations, transport logistics and tourism, regularly overlap in space and time. This has led to increasing conflict among the multiple uses of the region and breaches of the legal requirements for environmental protection that apply in the area. The aim of this study was to assess the impacts of human activities in the Fildes Region by monitoring the distribution of bird and seal breeding sites and recording human activities and their associated environmental impacts. Data from an initial monitoring period 200306 were compared with data from 200810. We observed similar or increased levels of air, land and ship traffic, but fewer violations of overflight limits near Antarctic Specially Protected Area No. 150 Ardley Island. Open waste dumping and oil contamination are still major environmental impacts. Scientific and outdoor leisure activities undertaken by station personnel are more frequent than tourist activities and are likely to have a commensurate level of environmental impact. Despite the initial success of some existing management measures, it is essential that scientific and environmental values continue to be safeguarded, otherwise environmental impacts will increase and the habitat will be further degraded. We argue that the Fildes Region should be considered for designation as an Antarctic Specially Managed Area, a measure that has proven effective for environmental management of vulnerable areas of the Antarctic.

Most visitors to Antarctica today are commercial tourists. Over 150 000 tourists visited Antarctica between 2007 and 2010, making up more than 700 000 person/landings. Despite the scale of tourism in Antarctica, knowledge about its environmental impacts is generally inconclusive, and monitoring is limited. This article examines tourist behaviour regarding the environment using information available on travel weblogs (blogs) posted by tourists on the Internet. Fifty blogs describing Antarctic travel were analysed, mostly as part of organized tourism cruises, during the four Antarctic summer seasons between 2007 and 2010, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The blogs described the activities of 90 people who had visited Deception Island as part of their itinerary and who, overall, had undertaken at least 190 person/landings in Antarctica. Blog analysis highlighted the importance of wildlife as a tourist attraction. In the blogs it was apparent that touristwildlife interactions result in a range of behaviours from both individual tourists and animals. Tourism results in cultural traces and other environmental consequences, although some of these would not be judged as ‘‘impacts’’ under the current practice of implementing the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. Blogs showed many more instances of compliance than of noncompliance with environmental regulations. Tourist blogs illustrate the behavioural processes by which environmental impacts from tourism could occur, which are repeated through thousands of person-landings and other activities in Antarctica every season. Precautionary action may be a practical alternative to manage tourism at some sites until it is clearer how this activity affects the environment.

There has been little progress in implementing protection of wilderness and aesthetic values in Antarctica since the coming into force of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty in 1998. This can in part be attributed to a lack of research defining these values and showing how they may be assessed. In 2009, a survey comprising 90 images of Antarctic landscapes was established on the Internet to canvass as wide a cross-section of people with an interest in Antarctica as possible on their perceptions of wilderness and their aesthetic preference. At the time of writing, over 337 respondents from 23 nationalities have taken part in the survey. Responses were analysed to determine the effect of human presence, both transient and as infrastructure, on perceptions of wilderness and aesthetic values. The analysis was in three parts: (1) all images combined; (2) images grouped by landscape type, derived from the Environmental Domains of Antarctica regionalization; and (3) 16 pairs of digitally manipulated images of which respondents were shown either an original image or one in which human presence had been either digitally removed or added. Responses to images grouped by landscape type show that coastal and ice-free areas are less valued both aesthetically and as wilderness than mountainous and ice-covered terrains. Signs of human presence were found to make images significantly less likely to be considered as wilderness and also reduced their aesthetic rating. This demonstrates that human impacts on these values are measureable. Keywords: Antarctica; Madrid Protocol; wilderness; aesthetic; values; photographs.

Soil trampling is one of the most obvious direct negative human impacts in Antarctica. Through a range of experiments and field studies based on quantitative physical (soil penetration resistance) and biological (collembolan abundance) indicators, we evaluate the current codes of conduct relating to the protection of Antarctic soils from the consequences of pedestrian impacts. These guidelines include using, where available, established paths that cross vegetation-free soils. However, the effectiveness of this strategy is highly dependent on context. Limited intensity use - below 100 foot passes per year - produces small changes at the soil surface that can recover relatively rapidly, suggesting that the dispersal of activity across wider corridors may be the most appropriate option. However, for paths with a higher use level and those located in steep-sloped sites, it is desirable to define a single track, following stony or bouldery surfaces wherever possible, to keep the disturbed area to a minimum. It is clear that both environmental conditions and expected use levels must be taken into account in determining when and where it is more appropriate to concentrate or disperse human activities. Even though they may have performed satisfactorily to date, the increasing pressure in terms of numbers of visits for certain sites may make it necessary to revise existing codes of conduct. Keywords: Trampling impacts; environmental monitoring; low impact practices; soil resilience; soil penetration resistance; collembolan abundance.

The thematic cluster ‘‘Human impacts in the Arctic and Antarctic’’ in Polar Research has its origins in the International Polar Year (2007-09) Oslo Science Conference held in Oslo, Norway, from 8 to 12 June 2010. We were the co-convenors of the session ‘‘Human impacts in the Arctic and Antarctic: regulatory and management implications,’’ in which 27 talks and 21 posters were presented over the course of two days. We invited contributors to the conference session to explore all types of impacts of human activities and regional environmental change in the polar regions, with a special focus on highlighting the management priorities for the protection of the landscape (environment and people) of the polar regions in the face of increasing human activity. Exploring a wide range of topics ranging from human wildlife interactions to chemical contamination and from whaling to polar tourism, contributors provided examples of existing environmental management regimes that are working as well as those that are not.