The Antarctic environment has undergone significant local environmental damage and degradation, with nations rebuilding, expanding, or developing stations and bases. The Australian Antarctic Division's ten-year (1985–95) A$76.704 million programme of rebuilding and expanding stations in Australian Antarctic Territory is representative of a continent-wide increase in station numbers and impact, increasing station size, human numbers, lengths of roads, buildings, waste material production, and energy requirements. Environmental planning and impact assessment have not been incorporated in official decision-making; human activities at Australian Antarctic Territory stations had serious impacts on the limited ice-free land and local flora and fauna. Casey, are-developed station, is examined with reference to environmental planning and management under Antarctic Treaty obligations and recent Australian environmental legislation. Recommendations include the setting up of an Australian Antarctic Resources Committee responsible inter alia for environmental planning and management, including regional and station management plans and cumulative and environmental impact assessment for all Antarctic operations.

This paper investigates how guides on Svalbard make sense of their relations to the environment whilst working with mass tourism. The Arctic is heating up more rapidly than any other part of the world, and over the last 30 years the effect of climate change has had a large impact on the environment in the Arctic. The guides as such find themselves living a paradox where their work destroys the nature that they care about and depend on. This paper analyses empirical data collected during four months of fieldwork amongst guides in Svalbard. Throughout the paper, two dimensions are explored: the guides’ relation to and understanding of the environment as well as their ways of caring for it. Building on illustrations of the guides’ preconceptions of the environment, it is shown how the guides in their everyday life are engaged in pro-environmental practices. These practices are embedded in the guides’ reciprocal relationship with the environment, where they negotiate between different trade-offs. The guides thus find a way to navigate the complexity of caring for the environment and working in tourism through their intimate relation to the environment.

The United States Army Research Support Group (USARSG), with headquarters at “TUTO”, provided all logistic support for the second phase of a co-operative programme of field work on the ice sheet of north-west Greenland designed to evaluate radio echo sounding techniques, to compare results with seismic and gravity surveys, and to continue measurements of strain rate in the ice sheet.

The Russian explorer V. A. Rusanov's geological expeditions to Novaya Zemlya (1908–11) gained him the experience that, in 1912, secured his appointment as leader of a government expedition to Svalbard. In the sealing ship Gerkules Rusanov and 14 others left Aleksandrovsk on 26 June, spending most of July and August staking claims, collecting specimens and inspecting coalmining operation around the islands. In late August Gerkules headed east for Novaya Zemlya and an attempt at the Northeast Passage. Neither ship nor crew were seen again, but relics of the expedition have since been found on islands in the Kara Sea; in 1978 a plaque commemorating the expedition was erected on Mys Primetnyy, where a campsite and many relics were identified.

During the post-Soviet period, fishery became one of the main sources of income for the inhabitants of Evenki villages in the northern Baikal region. When a number of villagers lost their official jobs, they managed to earn money by selling fish. Most people are required to fish during a particular season and to follow official quotas. Special indigenous Evenki quotas, however, are usually in excess of regular official guidelines and those who can use these quotas usually exceed them. This results in a tension between the way local Evenki people judge their own actions and the way their actions are judged by the official authorities. The law never covers all the areas of human activities, and in these gaps regular people manage to control certain institutions, knowledge and the use of landscapes themselves. In a discussion of the northern Baikal area, I employ the term ‘free spaces’, that describes the weakening of external control over the sphere of activities which are essential for local people's survival. This lessening of control has led people to regulate the fishing situation locally, resulting in many violations of fishing laws not being registered in official documents. The purpose of this paper is to to discuss a case of ‘free spaces’ in the post-Soviet Evenki village, with particular focus upon the village's non-compliance with official fishery regulations. This article investigates the reasons for, and the social mechanisms guiding, non-compliant behaviour in a northern Baikal Evenki village. It argues that non-compliance with fishery regulations should be interpreted within the context of local mechanisms of social control, market relations, reciprocity and cooperation.

The Kola region of northwestern USSR is the most highly developed area of the circumpolar north. Development based on exploitation and industrial refinement of natural resources, especially minerals and fish, has produced severe environmental damage in Kola and in neighbouring Norway and Finland. This article reviews the region's resources, existing development strategy and damage, and propose an alternative strategy that is environmentally and socially more benign. Possibilities for reducing the region's ties to central planning authorities and integration of the economy with that of norther Europe are also considered.

This article critically examines the assumption that the men of Sir John Franklin's last Arctic expedition died because, influenced by the characteristic British cultural prejudices of their time, they refused to employ Inuit survival skills. Since no detailed records from this expedition have ever been found, there is no direct evidence about the attitudes held or actions taken by its members. The article therefore draws on another source: the very extensive British periodical and newspaper coverage of the Franklin search. The writers who contributed to this literature knew even less than is now known about the events of the last Franklin expedition, but their speculations about the probable fate of the lost explorers reflect the beliefs about the Arctic and its people that prevailed at the time. Especially during the early 1850s, the great majority of periodical writers believed that Franklin and his men had gone native in order to survive. It is therefore evident that there was no cultural stigma attached to adopting the Inuit way of life in times of need.

Living resources of polar zones (areas limited by the 10°C isotherm for the warmest month) have in the past been developed exploitively: examples range from 17th century Arctic whales to musk oxen, caribou, and most recently fin fish stocks from Antarctic waters. Mineral resources as yet remain under-developed, particularly in the Antarctic. This is due to a combination of technological problems imposed by the harsh environment, and marketing problems accentuated by remoteness. Recent scientific and technological advances make further mineral exploitation feasible, though markets do not as yet justify the high costs of development in the Antarctic, where there remain unsolved technical and transportation problems. Future exploitation of living resources is likely to be more conservative than hitherto, especially in the Antarctic where the Treaty System provides potential safeguards. Management plans based on rational decision-making, and incorporating environmental safety measures, are needed to ensure that all further development of renewable natural resources, at either end of the earth, is conducted on a sustainable basis, and that all development proceeds with minimal environmental disturbance.

The Australian Antarctic Division manages four permanent stations in the sub-Antarctic and Antarctic. At each station a municipal waste incinerator is used to dispose of putrescible waste, wood, paper, cardboard, and plastics. Incineration significantly reduces the volume of waste but this combustion also emits toxic compounds. This study examined the waste incineration stream at Casey Station, Australian Antarctic Territory. The waste stream was sorted, burnt, and the incinerator emissions monitored. Twelve chemical compounds in gaseous emissions and heavy metals in the ash were measured. Results indicate that emissions of carbon monoxide are higher than one might expect from a small incinerator, and hydrocarbon emissions from the incinerator exceed combined hydrocarbon emissions from other sources on station. Arsenic and copper concentrations in ash, which is returned to Australia for disposal, exceed limits for hazardous waste disposal and so treatment would be required. Recommendations are provided on controlling source material in order to reduce or eliminate toxic emissions and undertaking incinerator maintenance to optimise combustion.

Alaska's North Slope Borough, established in 1972, is a unique institution of Native-controlled local government in the north. Providing a case study of Native self-determination under favourable conditions of indigenous, local control of resource wealth and political power, it has been the instrument by which local Inupiat capturedand used oil wealth, with clear economic and political benefits. They have gained high levels of local public services, jobs, and incomes; and effective representation in negotiations with external corporate and government authorities; the borough has also preserved and adapted critical elements of traditional culture. Costs of development and changeunder borough leadership have included waste and inefficiency, crime and corruption. Centralized power in borough headquarters has reduced the independence of borough villages and encouraged borough citizens to act like clients and consumers. Borough economy remains dependent on uncertain tax revenues from oil, with uncertain future employment opportunities for a rapidly growing Native population. North Slope Borough government has provided the Inupiat with means to greater political self-sufficiency, and the borough has responded effectively, under great pressure, to the opportunities and problems that petroleum development has brought to the region.

There are at least four ways in which Antarctic colonialism was white: it was paradigmatically performed by white men; it consisted in the taking of vast, white expanses of land; it was carried out with a carte blanche (literally, “blank card”) attitude; and it was presented to the world as a white, innocent adventure. While the first, racial whiteness has been amply problematised, I suggest that the last three illuminate yet other moral wrongs of the Antarctic colonial project. Moreover, they might be constitutive of a larger class of “white” colonialisms beyond the White Continent.

This study tries to show how the different modes of the fact of urban dwelling relate to the different forms and types of behaviour and representations of reality in relation to the present and future environmental problems, and their probable and desirable solutions, of Antarctica. On the basis of a theoretical socio-ecological and socio-existential discussion, together with a ‘rootedness’ approach, the results of a comparative study on young inhabitants (15–25 years old) of the Patagonian city of San Carlos de Bariloche, and the city of Buenos Aires, are analysed in order to ascertain their representations, perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours, in relation to Antarctica, its environmental problems, and possible solutions to them.

‘Rootedness’ is considered as a ‘total phenomenon’: multidimensional and interdependent among its different dimensions, spatial, social, and cultural, and also as an explanatory variable, together with anomie, (taken in this context as being an individual and/or structural situation that emerged when subjects do not feel that the current normative and axiological framework applies to them), participation, and consumerism. These variables were measured and related to different attitudes and behaviours of the young inhabitants in question.

Individuals with a high ‘rootedness’ level, and a low anomie level tend to identify environmental problems as dealing with immediate human action in terms of depredation and/or direct pollution. At the same time, this type of social actor (‘rooted’ and not anomic) tends to give priority as a solution to the socialisation and information processes. Perhaps a clear visualisation, coupled with a clear experience of the normative-axiological web of a given society could anchor individuals so that they could be in a better position to identify environmental problems, as well as possible causes and solutions thereof. A high grade of anomie causes subjects to envisage the future in a most pessimistic way.

Control and punishment as a means of remedying environmental problems tend to be emphasised predominantly among subjects within the 20–25 age range, and within a higher percentage of females. The same solution is also suggested by individuals suffering from a low actual, as well as potential, participation level.

Antarctica tends to be seen as the Terra Incognita. The high percentage of subjects that do not answer or say that they do not know the Antarctic issue can be summed up as a predominant ‘couldn't-care-less’, indifference many young people demonstrate with respect to the continent. The imaginary Antarctica, as a fruit of an aesthetic, poetic, and utopian vision is predominantly present among young people with a lower level of consumerism orientated life, a low anomie level and a high grade of potential participation, that is, individuals endowed with sufficient energy to experience and go ahead in concepts in which Antarctica rises as a metaphor of beauty, mystery, purity, virginity, and as the last shelter. Conversely, a more pragmatic and conflict aimed vision of Antarctica is to be found in a higher ratio among young people with the highest socio-economic level (SEL).

Nares is perhaps best known as the commander of the Challenger expedition from 1872 to 1874, a voyage of exploration which, it has been said, laid the foundations of almost every branch of oceanography as we know it today (British Museum, 1973). He also achieved fame as commander of the British Arctic Expedition of 187576, and as the author of Seamanship, which went through many editions in the second half of the 19th century. He is a fine example of the serving naval officer in the tradition of Parry, Franklin and Ross, one who could combine a naval career with a broad interest in science and the active pursuit of geographical exploration.

Alaskans disagree sharply over the issue of a subsistence priority for hunting and fishing by rural residents, including most Alaskan Eskimos, Aleuts, and Indians. The issue highlights competing visions of Alaska's future; one based upon Euroamerican values and the other on indigenous rights and customary law. Recent political and legal developments, particularly the Alaska Supreme Court's 1989 McDowell decision invalidating the state of Alaska's rural priority, have undermined significantly subsistence protections. Failure of the state to restore this priority led the US federal government to take over subsistence management under provisions of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (PL 96–487). For Alaska's indigenous peoples, these events make clear the limitations of relying solely on state and federal governments for protecting subsistence. Efforts are underway to strengthen tribal governments and assert limited jurisdiction over hunting and fishing. A major goal is to achieve standing for negotiations with state and federal authorities over future co-management of subsistence resources.

In November 1986 the United Nations considered again the ‘Question of Antarctica’ and published a further study, up-dating and developing that produced in 1984 and guiding UN First Committee discussions of 18–19 November 1986. Three resolutions were adopted concerning availability of information to the UN on Antarctica, a moratorium on the Antarctic minerals regime negotiations, and the exclusion of South Africa as a Consulative Party. Most Antarctic Treaty parties did not vote; the consensus that characterized UN debates on Antarctica in 1983 and 1984 has yet to be restored. The 1986 session suggested more questions rather than providing answers; a key question is whether the Antarctic Treaty System will preserve its unity in view of the problem of continuing South African membership.

Very little is known of the ancestry of these dogs, but they probably accompanied the Eskimos on their gradual migrations, lasting many hundreds of years, from Mongolia along the Arctic coasts of Canada, and eventually to Greenland itself.

Less than a thousand inhabitants live on the east coast of Greenland, nearly all of them being in the Angmagssalik and Scoresby Sound districts; and the Eskimo there depends mainly on his hunting kayak for his livelihood. The snowfall is comparatively heavy, especially during the spring, and on account of the windless conditions prevalent at this season, surfaces are very soft and heavy. For this and other reasons these Eskimos do not sledge very much, and there are no expert dog-drivers on the whole of the east coast. Their dogs are for the most part poor, and during the summer months, invariably underfed.

Sealing was the first exploitative industry in the Antarctic region. Throughout the 19th century it was characterised by large fluctuations in catches and shifts in hunting grounds as seals were almost exterminated in several locations. This paper reviews the historical literature on this industry. In particular it reviews sources and data that relate to its economic importance. So far, no one has succeeded in indicating the aggregate economic value of the industry. The main aim, therefore, is to investigate new data, especially on market prices that will enable a more accurate assessment of the significance of the industry.

Opinions are divided as to whether the area of Vestfold Hills was formerly covered by the East Antarctic ice sheet or S0rsdal Glacier. Striae orientations have been used to erect the model of extension of the ice sheet followed by a minor lateral expansion of Sørsdal Glacier, while basal till fabrics; distribution of weathered rock; and the nature, orientation, and distribution of moraines have been used to conclude that lateral expansion of Sørsdal Glacier alone can explain the evidence of the last glaciation of Vestfold Hills. A review of all available data supports the model of regional glaciation by an extended East Antarctic ice sheet. Lateral expansion of Sørsdal Glacier has probably only played a minor role in the glaciation of Vestfold Hills since the regional glaciation.