Visitors and the Virus

Hello and thanks for joining us today on Polar Times- welcome!

On today's episode Jack chats to Daniela Liggett of the University of Canterbury! Daniela specialises in environmental management and tourism regulation in extreme environments and we welcome her onto the show today to talk all about that as well as her role as co-project leader of the SCAR Antarctic COVID-19 Project Team.

Yes, it's partly a covid episode but as Antarctica is the only continent in the world with no confirmed cases, hopefully it's not too triggering! What was polar tourism like pre-pandemic? How has the pandemic impacted polar operations? How will polar tourism start up again post-pandemic? Has it possibly been a good thing for polar wildlife experiencing less human disturbance? Daniela answers all of these questions and more, delving into the role of tourism at polar places and perhaps even debunking any negative connotations one might have with the word "tourist".

As usual, if you would like to get in contact with Polar Times to recommend a guest, volunteer to be a guest, give us some feedback or just ask a question then you can email us (thesearepolartimes@gmail.com) or tweet APECS @Polar_Research any time- we would love to hear from you.

Episode edited by Ryan O'Hara

Cover art by Matthew Nelson

Music: "Scuba" by Metre, Nul Tiel Records, UK (unaltered) CC BY-NC-SA