Antarctic Cities

The approach & Outputs

 

The collaborative and participatory research approach used in this project has allowed us to engage with over 2,000 participants across the five cities through urban and Antarctic experts’ workshops, citizen surveys, youth competitions, an online game, and a trip to King George Island, Antarctic Peninsula. The project has been able to:

Propose a systematic rethinking of both the engagement and outlook of five Antarctic gateway cities — not as five far-flung ports competing for the same northern hemisphere commerce, but as members of an interlinked Southern Rim network that can learn from and benefit each other.
Develop a platform of integrated methods, tools and data sets that support co-operative and ongoing research projects on and in Antarctic Cities in their unique connection to Antarctica. This includes tools for evaluating the link between the sustainability of the cities and their connection to the Antarctic Region.
Inform both decision-makers and citizens on how the Antarctic gateway cities can best effect a cultural, political, ecological and economic transitions towards becoming Antarctic custodian cities.

The project outputs include:

  • Urban Sustainability Profiles for Hobart, Christchurch, Punta Arenas and Ushuaia that can allow partner organisations to argue from an evidence-based standpoint about the city’s strengths and weaknesses regarding their sustainability planning strategies.
  • An Antarctic Connectivity Index that demonstrates the nature of the cities’ links to Antarctica across a set of economic, ecological, cultural and political indicators. The Index is an innovative and comprehensive instrument that provides an evidence-based means to show the centrality of these cities in considerations of Antarctica, and in comparison to each other. The Index can be further refined through the comparative international case studies from the Surveys that were administered across the five study cities. Both Index and Profile could be used to inform industry, government and community on key drivers of sustainability and Antarctic connections; track the impacts of tools, policy and practice interventions.
  • Antarctic Futures, an online and open source serious game co-designed, co-developed, and played by young people, to promote local-global exchanges and flows of knowledge across the Southern Ocean rim, asking players to find solutions to future challenges faced by these cities and Antarctica and inviting young people to explore future scenarios of Antarctica and the gateway cities in which they live.
  • The Antarctic Youth Coalition launched at King George Island, Antarctic Peninsula in February 2020, led by 5 youth ambassadors selected from each of the five gateway cities who are building an enduring international youth network.
  • A Charter of Principles for Antarctic Cities outlining ethical values and responsibilities that might lead to a new global ethos of care towards the Antarctic targeting young people in custodial cities, policy-makers and Antarctic stakeholders