The Heroic Age in Antarctica dates from 1899-1922 when the first men to winter over and conduct scientific research and exploration endured many hardships with some deaths.  Besides providing the first scientific studies, photography and even poetry emerged from this period. It also can be defined by the isolation of the men involved, with no outside contact or chance of rescue if things went wrong.  Here, I review some of these early expeditions including the first winter over in sea ice with the ship Beligica from Belgium, the first winter over on the continent by Carsten Borchgrevink, and the first attempt at reaching the South Pole by Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton. 

Throughout this podcast, we have traced the history of Antarctica from its geologic origins, its earliest discovery and the first people to set foot there, to the first research stations and into the modern world. Even though Antarctica has been impacted throughout the past 120 years from research stations, tourism, and external anthropogenic factors such as climate change and pollution, it still remains the most remote and pristine place on earth, an extreme environment so relatively few people visit it. In this final episode, I go over the greatest threats facing Antarctica today, including global warming and sea level rise, and the importance in maintaining the Antarctic Treaty and Antarctica as a world park. It is up to all of us to ensure that Antarctica remains for peaceful purposes only. 

Fisheries for fin fish and krill began to increase in Antarctica in the late 1960s and 1970s and by 1982 the krill catch rose to a peak of over 520,000 tons removed. This increased harvest caused concern among scientists in Antarctic Treaty nations that fish and krill stocks would be depleted beyond recovery unless steps were taken to manage these fisheries. Here I discuss measures taken to avoid the loss of critical and keystone marine species in Antarctica with the addition of the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources, or CCAMLR, to the Antarctic Treaty in 1980. This agreement caused treaty nations to conserve an entire marine ecosystem and monitor indicator species that represent the health of that ecosystem.  Today, CCAMLR sets quotas for fishery species including krill that help sustain their populations, though many obstacles remain.