Ship plan vexes NZ firm

A report in The Press in New Zealand says that a Christchurch company specialising in Antarctic tours could be forced out of business by a British initiative designed to protect Antarctica from a shipping disaster.

Heritage Expeditions founder Rodney Russ said a proposal to compel ships visiting the Ice to travel in pairs for safety would be put to a meeting in India this week of the countries, including New Zealand, that belong to the Antarctic Treaty.

The grounding of the Norwegian cruise ship Nordkapp off the Antarctic peninsula in January, causing fuel to spill and prompting the evacuation of more than 300 passengers and crew, had heightened concerns about the risks posed by the boom in Antarctic tourism.

However, Russ said the proposal would be impossible for his company to meet. Heritage Expeditions charters an ice-strengthened Russian ship for its visits to the Ross Sea region, compared with the unstrengthened ships such as the Nordkapp that are used to ferry tourists to the peninsula.

“One paper put up by the British is talking about pairing ships to travel together. That would have big ramifications for us if it went through,” he said.

“It would virtually spell the end of tourism for us out of New Zealand. Getting two ships to operate the same itinerary would be just impossible.”

Russ said the Nordkapp grounding had intensified the debate because last summer saw the first megaliner – the Golden Princess, carrying more than 3500 passengers and crew – visiting Antarctica.

The 290m-long ship is 10 times the size of the Nordkapp and is not ice-strengthened.

The British have been bullish on the risks of cruises to Antarctica, with a delegation to an international Antarctic conference in Scotland last year urging a ban on superliners and a cap on the size of ships because of the potential for an “unthinkable disaster” worse than the Titanic or Exxon Valdez in terms of deaths and pollution.

When the Nordkapp struck rocks on January 30 it had been travelling with its sister ship, the Nordnorge, which helped in the rescue.

The Antarctic Treaty is the closest thing the frozen continent has to a government and is made up of 45 countries with an interest in the Ice, of which 28 – including New Zealand – have voting rights.

For a proposal to be adopted, all the voting members have to agree.

Tourism to Antarctica has boomed, tripling in the last 15 years to more than 28,000 passengers last summer, but remains self-regulated by the industry group, the International Association of Antarctic Tour operators.

Self-regulation has been a hot topic for the treaty countries. New Zealand has been a leading player in the debate, with Trevor Hughes, head of the Antarctic policy unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in India as part of the New Zealand delegation.

Report by The Mole

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