Advocates of the Wild Antarctic Win Portugal's Gulbenkian Prize

Adélie penguins -- People do not live permanently in Antarctica. Those who spend time in the south polar region fall into two groups. They are associated either with scientific research stations, or they are tourists. (Photo from Canva)

---

Antarctica and its ocean are like the planet's One Ring, which is Gollum's Precious in The Lord of the Rings. They concentrate a power that shapes the destiny of all, said Miguel Bastos Araújo, vice-president of the jury of the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity, which selected the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition from among 212 entries representing 115 countries as its 2025 winner of €1 million.

Created in 1978 to protect the Southern Hemisphere's Antarctica region from the growing threats of fishing, mining and cruise-ship tourism, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition has worked to promote the creation of Marine Protected Areas in the Southern Ocean; advocate for strong climate action, and protect wildlife, including krill, whales and penguins, reported Expresso (July 9).

The Gulbenkian jury chair, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said that the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition gives "hope to future generations" and is "an extraordinary example of international cooperation to protect and preserve this precious resource" in a region "beyond the jurisdiction of a single country", reported Expresso (July 9).

Gulbenkian juror Miguel Bastos Araújo, a scientist who researches how to conserve biodiversity in the face of global warming, said:

"Antarctica and the Southern Ocean concentrate essential functions for the balance of climate, biodiversity and sea level", reflecting solar radiation, acting as a carbon sink, and moderating winds and global atmospheric systems.

"Without the integrity of this 'ring', the world would fall into climatic, ecological and political disarray," said Araújo, the biogeographer who holds the Chair of Biodiversity at the University of Évora, emphasizing that "ASOC's tireless action unequivocally deserves the award."

More than 20 environmental organizations, such as The Pew Charitable Trusts and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), from a dozen countries form the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. As a group of non-governmental organizations, it relies on grants, donations and membership fees, and it does not have a publicly disclosed annual budget.

"Much of our work involves connecting and building relationships," said Claire Christian, Executive Director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, in an interview with Expresso (July 10). "This opportunity can help us reach new audiences, people who may not be familiar with what we do. That's almost as important as the prize's value. We're still figuring out where we'll spend the money, but we want to do more in the areas of climate change, tourism regulation and the creation of large Marine Protected Areas."

Vital Food Chain at Tipping Point

Antarctica contains 90 percent of the planet's land ice and 70 percent of its freshwater. The Southern Ocean represents about 10 percent of the global ocean and maintains 10,000 species of fauna and flora in a world of millions. Its powerful currents regulate global temperature and support marine biodiversity, which underpins the base of the global food chain.

However, this vital food chain is at a tipping point. There are extreme thermal anomalies, marine heatwaves and declining sea ice, with some parts of Antarctica warming two to three times faster than the rest of the world.

Conserving krill, which are crustaceans about 5 centimeters (2 inches long), is one of the coalition's 14 current campaigns.

"Krill is a key species in the Antarctica food chain -- without it, penguins, seals and whales would disappear," explained Eunhee Kim, a marine conservation specialist at the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, in an interview with Expresso (July 9). The researcher noted that "Korea went from being criticized for illegal fishing to becoming a proponent of new Marine Protected Areas in Antarctica", representing "a huge shift in attitude".

In addition to the vital role which krill play in the Antarctica food web, krill acts as a significant carbon sink, helping to keep the planet cool, according to the coalition's website.

"While each krill is small, together the global population weighs more than any other animal species on earth apart from humans. Much of this weight is in the form of carbon. Throughout the krill life cycle, this carbon is incorporated into their shells, skeletons and poop (feces), before ending up on the seafloor when they die. This keeps a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere, where it would mostly take the form of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes climate warming."

Almost all krill fishing takes place in a tiny fraction of an area known as Area 48 of the Convention of Antarctica Marine Living Resources, where there is foraging by large numbers of seals, penguins and migratory whales.

To protect this sensitive region, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition encourages the Convention of Antarctica Marine Living Resources to introduce an updated krill fishery ecosystem-based management system, implement scientific monitoring and compliance mechanisms, and adopt the Antarctica Peninsula/Domain 1 Marine Protected Area.

The Convention of Antarctica Marine Living Resources

The Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition participates in the Convention of Antarctica Marine Living Resources as an observer. Although it does not have a vote, it participates in the decision-making process by submitting policy papers and representing the environmental community.

Four years after the creation of the coalition, the Convention of Antarctica Marine Living Resources was founded in 1982 in response to an increase in the fishing of krill, according to the coalition's website.

Throughout the 19th century, seals and whales were hunted by humans, bringing several species, including fur seals and blue whales, close to extinction. In the 20th century, mackerel icefish, marbled rockcod, Patagonian toothfish and Antarctic toothfish were pushed to decline.

By the 1980s and many flirtations with species extinctions, the Convention of Antarctica Marine Living Resources, a regional economic integration organization, was founded to protect marine life and regulate fishing and other activities. Today, its 25 member countries and the European Union meet each year to make decisions on issues such as the opening and closure of fisheries and the designation of Marine Protected Areas.

Only two Marine Protected Areas, covering just 5 percent of the Southern Ocean, have been established, and they are the South Orkney Islands Southern shelf, proposed by the United Kingdom in 2009 and the Ross Sea Region, proposed by the United States and New Zealand in 2012 and coming into force in 2017, according to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition website.

Since then, members have been unable to reach consensus, which is requisite, on any new Marine Protected Areas. A minority of countries is blocking this effort. Since 2017, three new Marine Protected Areas have been proposed and reviewed each year with the input of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition.

"Competing national incentives among member states and complex international relations extending far beyond the negotiations themselves have stymied consensus as states negotiate power and fishing access in this icy commons at the bottom of the world," according to Why are talks over an East Antarctic marine park still deadlocked?, The Conversation (November 3, 2017).

"Coming into 2017, proponents had worked to strengthen the East Antarctic MPA (Marine Protected Area) proposal, achieving the support of all states except Russia and China.

"This obstruction is not novel. These two states have been the most vocal opponents of MPAs throughout the history of the negotiations, citing a variety of concerns including fishing interests, sufficiency of science, conservation need and political accusations."

---

Tourists in Antarctica (Photo from Canva)

---

Sharp Rise of Tourism

Responsible environmental tourism is another of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition's 14 campaigns.

Antarctica is becoming increasingly popular as a tourist destination. In the summer of 2022-2023, a total of 104,897 tourists visited the region, an increase of 41 percent over previous highs, according to the coalition's website. Industry growth is expected to continue during the next decade.

Most tourists (about 98 percent) visit Antarctica by ship, disembarking only for brief excursions. The Polar Code (2017) of the International Maritime Organization introduced regulations for safe, environmentally responsible shipping. However, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition supports a strengthening of the code.

The coalition supports a ban on the discharge of untreated sewage and of gray water (bath, shower, laundry and galley water). Gray water often contains chemical detergents, heavy metals, fecal coliforms, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and microplastics harmful to marine ecosystems.

The Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition also supports the efforts of Antarctic Treaty Parties (1959) to monitor the effect of black carbon, or soot, emitted by ships' diesel engines and generators, with a view to reducing carbon emissions in the region. Black carbon has been linked to more rapid snow melts and loss of snowpack.

About 99 percent of Antarctica is covered by ice. The 1 percent ice-free zone provides an essential habitat for seabirds, plants and insects. Most tourist and scientific activity also takes place in these areas.

The coalition supports exploring regulations to limit the maximum tourist capacity.

It also supports measures to prevent the introduction of non-native species by discharges of ballast water and fouling on vessel hulls.

In 2020, researchers identified 14 non-native species around the Antarctic Peninsula as well as 13 more at high risk of invading the region, according to Invasive non-species likely to threaten biodiversity and ecosystems in the Antarctica Peninsula region (January 13, 2020), Global Change Biology.

Living in Antarctica

Seven countries made defined claims to Antarctic territory before the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. The treaty does not recognize any claims, according to National Geographic.

There are no permanent residents, towns or cities.

However, there are about 66 scientific research bases at which people stay for a few months up to about one year, according to Cool Antarctica. The number of scientists varies from about 1,000 in winter to 5,000 in summer, reported National Geographic, Education.

McMurdo Station is a United States research center, the largest station in Antarctica, capable of supporting 1,250 people. Most residents are not scientists but work to support station operations, construction, maintenance and daily life. McMurdo has more than 80 buildings, including a firehouse, dormitories and stores. It has the continent's only ATM, a computerized electronic machine which performs basic banking functions such as cash withdrawals.

The Race for the South Pole

In the 20th century, the uninhabited Antarctica represented the last great frontier for human exploration. Fueled with nationalistic pride and supported by advances in science and navigation, many explorers took on the race for the Antarctic, according to National Geographic, Education.

In 1909, humans reached the North Pole for the first time. In the same year, the Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton got as close as 100 miles from the South Pole, reported BBC, Bitesize. Afterwards, British and Norwegian explorers set off to get even closer.

In 1910, both the Norwegian explorer Captain Roald Amundsen and the British explorer Royal Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott led expeditions to the South Pole. Amundsen used expert dog-teams and skiers while Scott used sledges and ponies.

Amundsen won the race, arriving at the South Pole on December 15, 1911. He and his team made it home safely.

---

At the South Pole, Captain Robert Falcon Scott's final expedition: Edward Adrian Wilson, Scott and Lawrence Edwards Grace "Titus" Oates standing, and Henry Robertson Bowers and Edgar Evans sitting (Photo by Henry Bowers, 1883-1912)

---

Captain Scott arrived at the South Pole on January 17, 1912, 33 days after Amundsen's team, only to find the Norwegian flag flying from a tent.

Scott, who was born in Stoke Damerel, Plymouth, in a family of naval and military traditions, had reduced his team to five, including himself, for the final march, sending the other men back.

At the South Pole, Scott's team consisted of Henry Robertson Bowers, a former sub-lieutenant in the Royal Indian Marine Service; Welsh Royal Navy Petty Officer Edgar Evans, who was born in Rhossili, on the Gower Peninsula in Wales; Lawrence Edwards Grace "Titus" Oates, who had been commissioned as an officer in the West Yorkshire Regiment, and English natural historian and physician Edward Adrian Wilson, who had been on the British National Antarctic Expedition, later known as the Discovery Expedition (1901-1904), with its leader, Captain Scott.

On the way home, on March 16, Oates, whose toes had become frostbitten, voluntarily left the tent and walked to his death. Scott wrote in his journal that Oates' last words were:

"I am just going outside and may be some time."

All these men died on the way back. They suffered from deteriorating weather, hunger and exhaustion, according to Scott's Last Expedition, Volume I (1913).

In February 1913, while in Madison, Wisconsin, on a United States lecture tour, Amundsen received the news that Scott and his four comrades had reached the pole on January 17, 1912, but all had perished by March 29, their bodies discovered in November 1912, after the end of the Antarctic winter. They were, in fact, only 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from a pre-arranged supply depot, reported BBC, History.

On first learning of their deaths, Amundsen said, "Horrible, horrible", according to A First Rate Tragedy (1999). His more formal tribute followed: "Captain Scott left a record for honesty, for sincerity, for bravery, for everything that makes a man," according to The Last Great Quest (2003).

A Chance Not to Repeat Environmental Problems

Antarctica is the world's last great wilderness, said Claire Christian, Executive Director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, winner of the 2025 Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity, on the organization's website.

"We have a unique opportunity to prevent some of the widespread environmental problems that have occurred elsewhere and chart a new course for our relationship with nature."

Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which describes itself as one of the largest in Europe, awarded the first Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity in 2020 to distinguish people, groups or organizations that have done outstanding work in the struggle against global warming, according to the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian website.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was the first winner of the Gulbenkian Prize (2020) followed by the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (2021); the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2022); Badi Apai Janggut, a community leader from Indonesia, Cécile Bibiane Ndjebet, an activist and agronomist from Cameroon and Lélia Wanick Salgado, a Brazilian environmentalist and designer (2003), and the Andhra Pradesh Managed Natural Farming community, Indian American soil scientist Rattan Lal and the sustainable development organization SEKEM, a name derived from an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph meaning "vitality of the sun" (2004), reported Expresso (July 9).

Ironically, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was created largely with profits from oil whose harmful effects the Prize for Humanity seeks to reduce by helping to cross the bridge from old to new technology.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was created in 1956 by the last will and testament of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, an Armenian businessman, art collector and philanthropist, who lived in Lisbon from 1942 until his death in 1955, according to the foundation.

Established in perpetuity, the Gulbenkian Foundation’s main purpose is to improve the quality of life through art, charity, science and education. It directs its activities from its headquarters in Lisbon and its delegations in Paris and London, with support provided by Portugal in Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) and East Timor as well as in countries with Armenian communities.

Angela Merkel accepted her first position -- as the president of the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity jury -- since she left the post of German chancellor in December 2021, according to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (June 30, 2022).

Merkel succeeded Jorge Sampaio, the former president of Portugal (1996-2006), who died in September 2021. For more than 15 years, Sampaio had collaborated with the Gulbenkian Foundation.