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Antarctic: Tourist Ships

I thank my noble friend Lord Montgomery for raising this important topic which has been focused by recent events in the Antarctic, as he said. In some ways, this is not purely an Antarctic problem. There have been a number of instances up in the Arctic as well, especially in the Spitsbergen area. We do not need to go back to the 1930s when the Germans took an interest in cruising in those waters. Indeed, a large German company lost a ship in the 1930s. Therefore, we are not dealing with anything new here. However, as my noble friend said, the real change is the enormous increase in cruise tourism, certainly within the past 15 or 20 years. I did a cruise up in the Spitsbergen area and I am well aware of the difficulties that can arise for people who are not wary of what might happen. In fact, there was an incident only last year where a small Russian ship got too close to a calving glacier, a large portion came tumbling down and the resulting wave injured a number of passengers on board that vessel. One of the tour guides on my cruise was a great expert on wildlife and ice and had spent many years down in Antarctica on the ““Explorer”” under her former name the ““Lindblad Explorer””. As he was coming away from Antarctica on a small Russian ship, they came across a single pillar of ice standing up out of the ocean, which I think he said was 300 to 400 feet high. They stood off this ice, luckily not too close, because as they looked at it, the thing collapsed. He had some of the most amazing photographs I have ever seen showing this huge finger of ice crashing down to the sea, causing enormous waves. Even standing some way off, the ship was rolled severely backwards and forwards by the backwash, so all sorts of hazards can arise. I wish to comment briefly on environmental issues. Huge concern was expressed in Antarctica in the early days when larger cruise ships started calling there, mainly expressing anxiety that too many people were going ashore. It was thought that they might damage the fragile environment. Measures have been taken to try to limit the number of passengers going ashore at any one time. However, it was pointed out at the time that the damage done by cruise ship passengers was not as great as that done by scientists and researchers who spend years down there, because things do not degrade in those low temperatures and the detritus—if one might call it that—from Captain Scott’s expeditions is still sitting there untouched. Things hang around for a very long time. My noble friend Lord Montgomery mentioned the recent incidents. There is one other concern with regard to Antarctica, which was brought to light when the captain of the Royal Navy’s ice patrol ship ““HMS Endurance”” gave a talk to the Parliamentary Maritime Group two or three years ago. He showed us some fascinating underwater pictures taken by the new side-scanning sonar. Developments such as that are making a big difference to what we know about the underwater profile down there. He still thinks that lack of good charting in that part of the world is one of the major risks. No doubt as more and more research ships go down there—I believe that the Norwegians have just ordered a very sophisticated new ship to look at Arctic and Antarctic waters—they will help us to have a lot more knowledge about the seabed configuration. The cruise ships tend to go to the same anchorages all the time. They tend to get very familiar with them. When the ship is anchored there, they will put down crew in small boats and make their own soundings, so they produce what are termed mug shots, so they are pretty well aware of what goes on where they anchor; it is only when they are transiting towards the open sea that the real danger occurs. My noble friend Lord Montgomery also mentioned that larger and larger ships are becoming involved. Princess Cruises has sent two 100,000-tonne ships down to Antarctica in the past two or three years. Those ships can carry up to 3,500 passengers and burn heavy fuel, as my noble friend rightly said, whereas smaller ships, such as the one that sank recently, run on diesel oil, which is much thinner. In the case of the ““Nordkapp””, the Norwegian ship, where some fuel was spilt when they were shifting it from tank to tank, it evaporated very quickly and no adverse results were found when the area was looked at a little while later. The other thing that I would say in support of large ships is that, as the Committee may imagine, they cost a huge amount of money, so it is in the cruise company’s interest to ensure that nothing adverse happens to them. Also, because of their size, they are much more compartmented than smaller ships, so hitting a small iceberg would not necessarily have the same effect as what happened to the ““Explorer””. As far as I know, that has not really been explained. There was talk of a fist-sized hole, and I am still rather surprised that a fist-sized hole managed effectively to capsize a ship so quickly, but as she is lying quite a few thousand feet under the sea, I do not suppose that we will ever find out. Finally, I come to the situation with the International Maritime Organisation, to which, again, my noble friend alluded. The IMO is responsible for international maritime safety regulations, as I am sure that the Minister is only too well aware. I understand that it has undertaken to rewrite, not just amend, the guidelines for operation in the Arctic and Antarctic waters; I should be grateful if the Minister could confirm that. Also, a correspondence group has been set up, with Canada acting as co-ordinator. That group will report in time for the IMO working group discussion early next year. It is hoped that life-saving equipment, search and rescue planning and response and other issues will be fully addressed. In their own best interests, cruise companies operate within well established safety management systems as required by the IMO. In addition, as we heard, the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators has set up emergency contingency plans and recommendations that include participation in a database that details the position of ships and includes a list of emergency equipment available on board, agreement to assist any other vessel in the event of an emergency and is looking into carrying ice pilots. Another development that cruise companies are actively instigating concerns their planning for going down Antarctic waters. They look at pairing ships so that there is a buddy ship in the area capable of taking off the crew of another craft if there is a major incident. That is a useful step forward. These developments are usually brought upon us by disasters, but unfortunately one cannot always act as quickly as one would like. Although the machinations of the International Maritime Organisation may seem to be a little slow, I think that that is the correct way of dealing with these matters, and I can only say that I hope that we will not suffer another, and possibly worse, incident in the mean time.