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RAISING AWARENESS AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE | 97

Ultimately, this experience is changing the angle of During my trip via the Dumont d'Urville base, I was
my doctoral research, as I'm going to focus on plan- able to discover the beauty and fragility of the conti-
ning strategies adapted to environmental impact. nent's fauna and flora. Despite significant environ-
This involves some complex questions about tole- mental protocols, there are concerns about the fu-
rance thresholds and space design. ture of Antarctica, which is also seeing an increase in
tourism, including land-based tourism, with people
What would be the scope of this research? setting foot on the continent and even going hiking!
The question of tolerance thresholds was raised by
the English architectural critic Reyner Banham, who What is your vision for conservation in Antarctica?
questioned the technology added to buildings de- The issue of environmental protection in Antarctica
signed for temperate environments to make interior has been around since the Antarctic Treaty of 1959
spaces more comfortable. How comfortable can and the Madrid Protocol of 1991. Today, we know
you get in a harsh environment? This was something that this continent owes its specific climatic condi-
that really bothered me when I was in Antarctica. tions to the circumpolar current. This makes the cur-
Because the more comfortable you are in a polar rent awareness of the close links between protecting
station, the more open access you will have to the the ocean, the Southern Hemisphere, and the global
Antarctic continent. This raises the question of the climate even more important.
human footprint in this protected area. What foot-
print do we want for the research stations in Antarc-
tica, 81% of which are located on ice-free land where
wildlife is concentrated? “The more comfortable we are in a
polar station, the more open access
we will have to the Antarctic continent.
This raises questions about the human
footprint in this protected area”.

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