A new coordinated international set of rules to govern commercial and research activities in both polar regions is urgently needed to reflect new environmental realities and to temper pressure building on these highly fragile ecosystems, according to experts attending a UN University-affiliated conference in Iceland marking the International Polar Year.

Due to climate change, the ancient ice lid on the Arctic Ocean is fast disappearing, creating new opportunities for fishers and resource companies. The possibility of a new and far shorter ocean route between Europe and Asia is already drawing billions of dollars in investment in ice-class ships.

Antarctica, meanwhile, is witnessing growing tourism (40,000, including tour staff, in 2007), as well as researchers (now about 4,000 in summer occupying 37 permanent stations and numerous field camps) and companies interested in exploiting the biological properties of that continent’s “extremophiles.”

However, “many experts believe this new rush to the polar regions is not manageable within existing international law,” says A.H. Zakri, Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS), co-organizers of the conference with Iceland’s  University of Akureyri, in partnership with  Tilburg University (Netherlands), and the  Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law, at the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland (Finland).

Pressure on Earth’s polar areas is mounting quickly and and many experts are now calling for an internationally-agreed set of rules built on new realities. At the Iceland conference, leading scholars detailed fast-emerging issues in international law and policy in the polar regions caused by such developments as the opening up of the Northwest Passage, identified priorities for law-making and research and offered advice to decision makers.

Problems forecast for the Arctic as its ice recedes include overfishing, pollution from ships and offshore extraction of oil and gas, oil spills and invasion by alien species carried in ships’ ballast water.

“As the ecosystems of the Arctic are affected by climate change, so too will the inhabitants be affected, because of their heavy reliance on the natural resources of the Arctic,” said UNU Rector Konrad Ostrerwalder.

“It is important that voices of the indigenous and other peoples of the Arctic be heard in the course of the development of government policies at all levels.”

Conference presenter Dr. Tatiana Saksina, of the World Wildlife Fund’s International Arctic Programme, said that national marine environmental protection regimes that cover significant portions of Arctic waters constitute a fragmented system of governance, with large gaps in jurisdiction, implementation and effectiveness. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), meanwhile, includes environmental rules inadequate to protect the ice oceans, she said.

Conference chairman Dr. David Leary, of UNU-IAS, notes that the Madrid Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty commits signatories to avoid changing distribution, abundance or productivity of Antarctica’s fauna and flora, to jeopardize endangered or threatened species or to degrade or create substantial risk to areas of biological, scientific, historic, aesthetic or wilderness significance.

It also commits signatories to guard against importation of non-sterile soil and the introduction of non-native species and micro-organisms (e.g., viruses, bacteria, parasites, yeasts, fungi).

In the Antarctic, however, tourist activities can compromise the region due to seeds, invertebrates and soil in their clothing and footwear, and in their provisions and equipment, says Dr. Leary. As well, visitors may introduce and spread infectious disease-causing agents through, for example, interactions with wildlife and leaving behind organic wastes.