The world has only two frontiers left: the seabed and Antarctica.

—K. Suter

Four billion years of evolution have culminated in where we humans are now, although as a modern species we date back only about 120,000 years or so. Humans have inhabited all the major continents, except Antarctica, for many thousands of years. Antarctica has been home to our species for less than a century, but in the 1990s less than a thousand people a year actually inhabit Antarctica for a year or longer.

Perhaps, though, one day in the distant future, if unfortunately our ecosystems have been destroyed by too much clearing of forest, loss of irreplaceable soils, increased salinity in ground waters, and the excessive pollution of the atmosphere, the human race may look at Antarctica with hope. It could be possible for people to inhabit the vast wilds of Antarctica in large cities built on the polar plateau, harvesting the continuous months of summer sunshine as energy and growing food in vast hydroponic biospheres. Wind energy and solar power could be harnessed to heat the dwellings and provide enough energy for daily needs. In fact there is so much energy in Antarctica from its fierce katabatic winds and five months of almost perpetual sunshine that maybe one day, when solar and wind energy technology is affordably cheaper to transport than it is today, Antarctic energy could be channeled back to other parts of the world.

In this way Antarctica could potentially provide the human species with some respite while the rest of the planet commences its long

period of recuperation from the decades of ecological degradation. This, of course, is my worst-case scenario, and I sincerely hope that the earth's ecosystem doesn't get into this much trouble over the next few centuries!

Let us at least entertain the concept of Antarctica as a possible last resort for human habitation. It would be far cheaper to live on the polar plateau of Antarctica than to live under the sea in pressurized cities or to colonies the moon. It is certainly large enough to hold billions of people, once we have the technology to live there self-sufficiently, presumably well away from the sensitive near-shore and shelf ecosystems that most of the wildlife inhabits. It has a vast source of freshwater and sunshine that together, with input from fertilizers, can provide the basis for a hydroponic agriculture. Monitored harvesting of food resources around the continent combined with human and animal waste could provide protein and fertilizer for this system.

There is no reason why the vertebrate life of Antarctica could not one day be commercially farmed as food resources, once breeding populations are high enough. Whales could then become the cattle of the southern continent, seals the sheep, and penguins the poultry. I know these ideas might appear shocking to some ecologists and environmentalists, but they are just mere thoughts, not suggestions or anything that I could imagine happening in the near future. It is far more ecologically sound to farm the animals that are native to the Antarctic ecosystem rather than introduce foreign species, such as polar mammals from the Northern Hemisphere. The point should at least be made that we must never overlook Antarctica's huge potential as a possible last resort for humanity's survival.

Antarctica's vast biomass is indeed a potential food source to feed millions of people, especially if they were based on the continent itself. The rich shelf seas around Antarctica are home to an estimated 5,000 million tons of krill, Euphausia superba, a small shrimp-like crustacean which forms the base of the food chain for much larger creatures like the baleen whales, but also for seals, sea-birds, fishes, and other invertebrates like squid. Krill has been commercially fished for human consumption by the Soviets, who in 1981-82 took around 500,000 tons. Although krill can be very high in fluoride, so is not directly safe for

human consumption, its value might be realized more in processed form as a cheap source of protein for undeveloped countries, if costs of procuring the harvest and processing it can ever make the final product safe and affordable to such countries. Alternatively, it could be harvested in the southern oceans to feed the whales to feed the humans. . . .

More recently studies by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey 's Marine Life Sciences Division have demonstrated that the relative abundance of krill from year to year directly reflects the scale of bioproductivity of the Antarctic marine ecosystem. In years of low krill abundance the whole food chain is affected—there is a lower abundance of certain fishes, whales, seals, and penguins that rely on the krill as their main food source. Such events can sometimes have an effect on us humans, as some of these species, like the Antarctic cod, were commercially fished back in the 1960s for our consumption. So, the study of krill will no doubt be very important for human food resources in one way or another.

In 1980 all signatories to the Antarctic Treaty signed the convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources and it was ratified in April 1982, largely prompted by the heavy Soviet krill fishing. The living resources covered by this document include all things except whales and seals, which are both covered by different conservation conventions. If krill fishing was ever firmly established in Antarctica, there is the strong possibility that having hundreds of large ships continuously in dangerous southern waters could result in some major disaster, which could lead to the pollution of these waters. Despite this, the rest of the Antarctic food chain has not been thoroughly enough investigated as to its food value for human consumption. Obviously there are many millions of tons of fish and squid, not to mention other consumable creatures, but we need more research in respect of resource estimates and sustainability for long-term harvesting. Nonetheless, Antarctica's food resources are a major factor to be considered in all future planning about how to feed a growing human population; more so if humans ever populated Antarctica in a major way.

The development of tourism to Antarctica is of growing concern

to some people, but I feel this is a necessary process to allow more people access to its magnificent grandeur. If tourism is controlled by confining most visitors to ships that retain all their waste products and by carefully monitoring the presence of visitors when on short forays to the mainland, then I see no real environmental problems arising. Some may argue that just the presence of large commercial ships in Antarctic waters is a potential threat due to possible oil or fuel spillages, and with this I cannot disagree, but I think that in an age of increasing technology it could be done with little risk to the environment. Perhaps, in the not too distant future, large sailing ships boosted by solar-powered engines could safely take tourists to and from Antarctica.

The number of people who currently visit Antarctica as tourists is minuscule by comparison with the number of tourists to other parts of the world's densely populated regions, such as the Mediterranean or the small Pacific islands of Fiji, Tahiti, and Hawaii. Cost more than anything currently keeps in check the number of people who visit Antarctica as tourists; and, by virtue of its extreme climate and distant southerly location, cost will continue to be a major factor limiting the numbers of visitors for some time to come.

Personally, I believe that Antarctica should not be the domain of the privileged few, but be accessible to the people of the world just as any other great wilderness, so long as tourism is continually monitored to prevent any adverse impact on its ecosystems.

Antarctica, for me, is a metaphor for the unblemished corner of humanity 's soul. Its conquest has cost many lives, but in that process we have redefined the very nature of heroism, bravery, and discovery in a new context.

We need Antarctica. We need to preserve it.

In all its pristine, white dignity.