Conserving the oldest historic sites in the Antarctic: the challenges in managing the sealing sites in the South Shetland Islands

Abstract

The fur seal population of the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, was intensively hunted by sealers from the discovery of the islands in 1819 to the early 1820s, by which time the seal numbers were so depleted that sealing became uneconomic. Sealing was revived for both fur seals and elephant seals at several periods later in the century. Sealers were put ashore in gangs and built makeshift shelters in which to live, and also occupied caves. Many of these have been identified on the various islands of the South Shetlands, and a number have been excavated. The paper addresses some of the management issues facing the conservation of these sites, which include accelerating tourism, disturbance by scientific researchers, disturbance by animal activity, burial or erosion by drifting sand, and climate change.

Geobibliography and Bibliometric Networks of Polar Tourism and Climate Change Research

“…The 93 synthesized articles are published in 51 different journals. Among them, some spatially focused on polar regions, such as Polar Record (n: 8) [27,29,49,72,75,84,91,94], Arctic (n: 6) [36,44,48,104,105,110] and Polar Geography (n: 5) [34,62,79,82,90], and others thematically focused on tourism, such as Journal of Sustainable Tourism (n: 7) [18,28,53,54,60,64,102] and Current Issues in Tourism (n: 5) [31,33,69,76,86], as well as those with specific spatial and tourism foci, i.e., Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism (n: 5), are prominent. Thematically climate focused journal coverage is uncommon except for one article [73] from Climate Research.…”

“…Last but not least, thematic categorization of the geobibliography presents some important findings regarding research foci and gaps. Numbers of the single studies that belong to the research themes of impacts, adaptation, emissions, mitigation, and rebound effects and combined impacts are 28 [18,20,21,25,27,33,36,47,48,52,55,57,58,62,63,65,66,68,72,73,87,88,91,95,101,105,108,110], 40 [19,22,23,26,[28][29][30][33][34][35][37][38][39]43,44,49,50,53,56,71,74,…”

“…In the Arctic, demand side studies form the least interest, while diverse tourism types are in question. Likewise, impact assessment research also has a couple of bipolar [20,88] and a couple of direct studies [91,95] on the Antarctic. Overall, the perspectives of impact studies are more business-oriented.…”

Procesos Geomorfológicos Y Formas Del Relieve en Dos Cuencas Lacustres De La Península Byers (Isla Livingston, Antártida Marítima): Implicaciones Paleoambientales

“…Cabe citar los restos de refugios de los cazadores de focas que recorrieron estas costas entre finales del siglo XVIII y principios del XIX, distribuidos generalmente en las proximidades de la línea de costa (ZARANKIN y SENATORE, 2005;PEARSON et al, 2010). Actualmente la presencia humana se limita a la realización de actividades científicas.…”

Assessing tourism patterns in the South Shetland Islands for the conservation of 19th-century archaeological sites in Antarctica

“…Pearson, 2018;Pearson & Stehberg, 2006;Senatore, 2018a;Stehberg, 1983Stehberg, , 2003Stehberg & Cabeza, 1984;Zarankin & Senatore, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2005, 2007Zarankin et al, 2011), and the conservation and management of these sites has become a matter of concern for scientific teams (e.g. Pearson, Stehberg, Zarankin, Senatore, & Gatica, 2010;Senatore 2018b;Senatore & Zarankin, 2011Stehberg, 2004;. The archaeologists stated that their conservation is essential for the research about the human past in Antarctica and their heritage values are essential components of the research process.…”