Protecting cold environments

Cold environments are fragile: plants grow so slowly in the cold that damage can take decades to recover. Development brings risks:

• Oil spills: on 24 March 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling about 11 million US gallons of oil. Thousands of seabirds, otters and seals died.
• Disturbance to wildlife: roads, pipelines and noise can block animals' migration routes, such as the caribou's.
• Thawing permafrost: vehicles, buildings and cleared ground damage the insulating plants, so the ground thaws and sinks.
• Indigenous peoples may lose the land and animals they depend on.

A wilderness is a large area of land almost untouched by people. Cold wildernesses are worth protecting because:

• Wildlife: they are home to species found nowhere else, such as polar bears and emperor penguins.
• Science: the ice holds a record of past climates, read from ice cores, and the clean air and water let scientists measure pollution and climate change.
• Climate: ice and snow reflect sunlight, helping to cool the planet; permafrost locks up carbon.
• People: Indigenous peoples have lived on this land for thousands of years.
• For the future: once spoilt, they are very hard to restore. Many people believe they should be kept for their own sake.

Technology reduces the damage from development:

• Raised pipelines with heat pipes, such as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, protect permafrost and let animals pass.
• Directional drilling reaches oil several kilometres away from one site, so fewer drilling pads are needed.
• Ice roads, built in winter, melt in spring and leave little trace.

Governments make rules and protect land:

• The USA protects huge areas of Alaska, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Denali National Park.
• After the Exxon Valdez spill, US law required new oil tankers to have double hulls, so a hole in the outer hull wouldn't spill oil.

The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by 12 countries, and many more have joined since. It keeps Antarctica for peaceful purposes and science:

• no military bases or weapons testing;
• no new territorial claims;
• scientists share their results.

Its Madrid Protocol (1991) bans all mining, except for scientific research, and sets rules on waste and visitors.

Conservation groups, such as WWF and Greenpeace, study wildlife, campaign against oil drilling in the Arctic, and put pressure on governments and companies to protect wilderness.

Cold environments hold oil, minerals and fish that people want, but they are fragile wildernesses.

• In Antarctica, an international agreement has kept development to science and tourism: the balance strongly favours conservation.
• In Alaska, development goes on, but technology and laws reduce its harm: the Trans-Alaska Pipeline has carried oil since 1977 across permafrost.
• Conservation groups argue that even careful development risks spills, and that the oil adds to climate change, which threatens cold environments most of all.

Judgement: development and protection can be balanced, but only with strict rules, good technology and constant monitoring.