PLEA Network

19 September 2016, The Conversation, Disruption over Macquarie Island calls for some clever Antarctic thinking. The fate of the Australian Antarctic Division’s research base on Macquarie Island hangs in the balance, after last week’s surprise announcement that it would close in March 2017 was followed on Friday by a suggestion that the government could yet reprieve it. Why all the fuss over a scattering of buildings on a windswept island (admittedly a UNESCO World Heritage-listed one) perched on a tectonic ridge halfway between Australia and Antarctica? Macquarie Island is the perfect natural laboratory for scientific research. Unique climate, geological, biological and astronomical measurements are collected year-round. The data is fed into many large-scale, international science programs and reports, including those published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is something of an anomaly in Australia’s national Antarctic program. Unlike Heard Island, Macquarie Island lies outside the areas covered by the Antarctic Treaty and the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. The Tasmanian government manages the island. The buildings at the island’s north end are home to research infrastructure and accommodation for various organisations. These include the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Meteorology, and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, which monitors the Southern Ocean for evidence of nuclear events. These buildings are increasingly exposed to ocean inundation. Read More here