KEY POINTS:
Antarctic Treaty nations will decide in June whether to adopt a framework developed by New Zealand scientists for classifying physical environments over the entire frozen continent.
Landcare Research scientists, led by Fraser Morgan, have developed the Environmental Domains of Antarctica system over four years to the point where they say it is now considered the leading environmental information database for the continent.
The classification system highlights environmental variables that can be used for a range of management activities in Antarctica, including prioritising sites for protection and ongoing environmental monitoring.
The Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959, designated the continent as an internationally managed, natural reserve devoted to peace and science.
The treaty and its protocol on environmental protection commits New Zealand to the protection of Antarctica and its dependent and associated ecosystems.
But Antarctica New Zealand's environmental manager, Neil Gilbert, said yesterday that the difficulty in developing a consistent framework for protected areas had perplexed the Antarctic community for a decade.
Until now there has been no environmental or geographic framework to identify and implement a representative network of specially protected areas that include important examples of plant and animal species, and geological features or important breeding colonies.
"We also see other opportunities to use these environmental domains such as in environmental monitoring and environmental reporting," he said. "For example, it could provide better guidelines on what we should monitor and just where to undertake that monitoring."
An independent monitoring programme near New Zealand's Scott Base and the United States' McMurdo Station recently showed contamination of aquatic life near the two research bases with polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), probably from fire retardants, in wastewater sludge and dust.
The classification system builds on a system the Landcare scientists developed for New Zealand's land terrestrial environments - Land Environments of New Zealand (known as Lenz) - and used eight variables including temperature, solar radiation, wind speed, geology, land cover and slope.
The research was commissioned by the Department of Conservation and Antarctica New Zealand.
- NZPA
