CYIL Vol. 7, 2016

CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ XXXIX. ANTARCTIC TREATY CONSULTATIVE MEETING IN SANTIAGO website of the relevant Contracting Party containing educational material intended for public purposes. 16 Within this agenda item the Russian Initiative on Declaring 2020 the Year of Antarctica also deserves attention. 17 The Russian Federation pointed out that in 2020 it will be the 200 th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica and invited other Contracting Parties to organise special events celebrating the anniversary. Another discussed topic was information exchange, which is one of the cornerstones of the Antarctic Treaty. At XXXVIII. ATCM some items were identified as requiring review and further discussion. Intersessional Contact Group on review of information exchange requirements considered those items and Australia presented the outcome of the debate. 18 Changes to the Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES) are of operational character and were adopted by the Meeting without any problems. 19 The second working group, called Operations, Science and Tourism, came across several items with legal implications. One of them was inspection. This year two inspections took place. China undertook inspection of six stations belonging to the Russian Federation, the Republic of Korea, Uruguay and Chile. The inspection was quite short, only four days, but China was able to draw some general recommendations as a result. These recommendations address concerns related to the training of personnel of the Antarctic station, research activities, operational matters and tourist activities. 20 The three days joint inspection undertaken by Argentina and Chile led to several general recommendations in various areas on the basis of the visit of five Antarctic stations and Eco-Nelson facility. 21 Regarding the conduct of inspections, 20 Working paper 22. Among general recommendations belong training, especially on safety and environmental protection, for short stay personnel of the station. Another recommendation is focused on regional climate change and the need to increase in this connection the number of research personnel and long-term research projects. Cleaning up the buildings and associated facilities that are out of use in the stations, is subject matter of another recommendation. The next one is based on the need to improve route safety and vehicle transportation bearing in mind environmental impact. Increase of environmental monitoring related to sewage and flue gas is identified as another point for improvement. Further, it was also recommended to stimulate a debate on the necessity of installation of sludge treatment devices. The last recommendation aims at creation of more robust tourism regulations that would require the tourist operators to educate tourists with environmental issues as well as safety management. 21 Working paper 44. Technical sheets based on Antarctic Inspection Checklist A prepared by the inspected stations were acknowledged as a good practice. It was suggested that this technical sheet could be downloaded from the EIES. Further, these technical sheets might be also incorporated to the COMNAP web pages of stations. It was suggested that the treatment of the environment that was conducted in stations should be more publicly available. Increase in use of renewable energy resources was commended. On a different note, it would be welcomed if a review of helicopter landing sites took place. A need to expand medical coordination was also identified. With respect to science, it was 16 Working paper 20. 17 Information paper 67. 18 Working paper 17. 19 Decision F (2016).

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