Scott Base tightens belt but looking ahead to 2007

Scott Base founder Sir Edmund Hillary is vowing to make it to the 50th anniversary of New Zealand's Antarctic outpost.

Sir Edmund revisited Scott Base last summer to dedicate the mammoth new field centre named in his honour and which is bigger than the entire base Sir Edmund's team built on the shores of Ross Island in the late 1950s.

However, Antarctica New Zealand (AntNZ) chief executive Lou Sanson told the annual Antarctic conference in Christchurch yesterday that those who had dubbed the visit Sir Edmund's last trip to Antarctica were underestimating him.

"He's made it very clear that if he's ... able and if we're still willing to take him, he's very intent on being part of the 2007 50th anniversary," Mr Sanson said.

He described Sir Edmund's visit as a highlight of a year in which representatives from the Australian and Belgian Antarctic programmes visited the modern Scott Base to see how small bases on the ice ought to be run.

AntNZ had had a funding boost to commemorate Scott Base's jubilee and to provide logistics for New Zealand's programmes on the ice but the organisation was still having to tighten its belt because of "significant increases" in the cost of doing business in Antarctica, Mr Sanson added.

"Fuel costs are up 160 per cent, landing fees are up 50 per cent, and the United States is facing $US14 million ($20.6 million) just to access the icebreaker channel into McMurdo Station.

"Virtually all this extra money will go into assisting the United States in terms of the icebreaker and the substantial increase in costs that we continue to face. It's become much harder for us to balance."

Mr Sanson said another challenge was the Royal New Zealand Air Force's scheduled upgrade of its Hercules fleet over the next few years, which will mean AntNZ will get only 12 return flights when its joint contribution to the US and Italian logistics pool is 15 flights.

- NZPA