Environmental

Antarctica is the largest pristine environment on earth.  Owned by no country, the nations of the Antarctic Treaty Organisation enforce strict conditions on anyone working or travelling on the continent to ensure it remains unspoilt.  Animals can no longer be taken there, so preventing the use of sled dogs by expeditions, and all equipment and supplies must be thoroughly cleaned before arrival to prevent possible contamination.  All man-made material and waste products must be diligently removed.

Both the science stations in Antarctica and the growing tourism industry conflict with the desire to leave the continent unspoilt, but careful management of visitor numbers have, so far, ensured that the human footprint is tiny.  On a busy day in the Antarctic summer, they may be 1,000 people on the continent, mostly in the larger US stations at McMurdo and the Pole, or at the coast in visiting cruise ships.

Explorers make up only a fraction of 1% of visitors, but are some of the few to venture inland.  Last Great Challenge will leave no artificial trace of its passing and will offset the carbon cost of the entire expedition.

Antarctica is huge, and empty.  You can travel for hundreds of miles without seeing another living thing, and no sign that any living thing has been there before you.  We intend to ensure that it stays that way.  We hope to take thousands of explorers with Justin and John to Antarctica, but only through their words and pictures.