The Antarctic environment has undergone significant local environmental damage and degradation, with nations rebuilding, expanding, or developing stations and bases. The Australian Antarctic Division's ten-year (1985–95) A$76.704 million programme of rebuilding and expanding stations in Australian Antarctic Territory is representative of a continent-wide increase in station numbers and impact, increasing station size, human numbers, lengths of roads, buildings, waste material production, and energy requirements. Environmental planning and impact assessment have not been incorporated in official decision-making; human activities at Australian Antarctic Territory stations had serious impacts on the limited ice-free land and local flora and fauna. Casey, are-developed station, is examined with reference to environmental planning and management under Antarctic Treaty obligations and recent Australian environmental legislation. Recommendations include the setting up of an Australian Antarctic Resources Committee responsible inter alia for environmental planning and management, including regional and station management plans and cumulative and environmental impact assessment for all Antarctic operations.

James Gordon Bennett Jr (1841–1918), recognized as one of the most important individuals in the development of popular journalism in the United States, was proprietor of the New York Herald, perhaps the most influential American newspaper of his time. The man who sent Henry Morton Stanley to Africa to find David Livingstone, he was also significant in American Arctic exploration during the second half of the 19th century. He played a role in the organization or funding of five Arctic expeditions, including the Jeannette expedition under George W. De Long. Although his interest in exploration was primarily a means to increase the circulation of his newspaper, by his sponsorship Bennett helped contribute to knowledge of the Arctic. More importantly, through extensive coverage in the Herald, he helped create national interest in the Arctic and in polar exploration in general.

The Soviet Arctic region is defined in administrative terms, and some parameters of sustainable development are defined and discussed. Under state enterprise sincethe 1930s the Arctic has been subject to a ruthless policy of development with little regard for environmental considerations or the needs of either native or migratory workforces. Perestroyka brings promise of better and more effective organization. The Arctic should be regarded as a component of the Soviet national economy, but business and scientific developments must be implemented with due consideration of possible social and ecological consequences. In all developments the limited material and labour resources of theArctic, as well as limited possibility of their employment elsewhere in the country to get the same result, should be bome in mind, and the effectiveness of proposed Arctic projects must be considered in the light of possible alternatives before any are implemented.

Horses were first used in Antarctica when eight Manchurian ponies provided support for Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition (1907–09). Scott's British Antarctic ‘Terra Nova’ Expedition (1910–13) used 17 ponies during its first year, and seven Indian mules in the following season. This paper presents new information on the mules, which suffered severely from the effects of an unbalanced diet and low temperatures. They were the last horses ever used to support an Antarctic expedition. In January 1989 when the stables of Scott's hut at Cape Evans were reclad and cleared of ice by a working party from the Antarctic Heritage Trust (New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme), artefacts relating to their occupancy by Manchurian ponies and Indian mules were located.

The Winter Weddell Gyre Study was conducted by an international group of scientists, including members of the Scott Polar Research Institute, from FS Polarstern (FRG) in September and October 1989, in collaboration with RV Akademk Federov (USSR). This was a multi-disciplinary experiment involving biologists, chemists, oceanographers and meteorologists. The SPRI involvement centred on sea-ice research, involving both our own experiments and a programme carried out in collaboration with the other research groups on board. The SPRI programme involved measuring ice thickness; studying the under-ice topography with an upward looking sidescan sonar; investigating the acceleration, tilt and strain of the ice; deploying Argos buoys; aerial photography; iceberg tracking; and two acoustic experiments, one to record ambient noise and the other to acoustically measure the ice thickness.

During the height of Alaska oil pipeline construction there was a critical need for all types of housing in Fairbanks, Alaska. Eight architects practising in that city were asked (1) what design criteria they considered for housing habitability, (2) what habitability criteria they considered when siting a structure, (3) how they designed for individual privacy and (4) whether they conducted post-occupancy evaluations of their projects. The results clearly show that little attention is given to habitability in high latitudes. Several factors that would help to accomplish this are considered

The recent discovery in a US Government archive of acomplete run of the newspaper Arctic Moon, written during the early months of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (1881–84), permits us to see what this 19th century onice publication looked like and examine its contents, and perhaps judge why it had so brief an existence in the tragic expedition led by Lt A. W. Greely to Ellesmere Island.

Natural resources of Svalbard, notably seal, walrus, whale, reindeer, polar bear and Arctic fox, were exploited through the 19th and early 20th centuries by both overwintering and seasonal hunters and trappers. Hunters also collected eggs and down of eider ducks to supplement their catches. Amounts of uncleaned down officially registered as imported to Norway ranged from 300–2600 kg annually (mean 1300 kg). The accuracy of these figures is discussed. Eider down accounted for 7–10% of the annual income of the trappers who wintered on the islands. Competition between trappers spending the winter and the crews of the sealers and whalers often resulted in an unorganized free-for-all collection of down and eggs, causing a steady decline of the eider population. The population was protected by legislation in 1963 and the designation of several bird sanctuaries in 1973, in which it was hoped that eider numbers would recover. It is not clear whether these measures have been successful: historical records have too many lacunae for a reliable calculation of the original size of the eider population which the trappers and sealers exploited.