Anyone and everyone buys a blow dryer and their kin can sue after it was used in the bathtub. So that's a different matter entirely. Not everyone can go to Antarctica. Only a select few!
And its not about how much money they have, though that can have something to do with it. Because generally you are talking about the money of retirees who have worked hard all their life and saved and lived prudently and have long anticipated this experience, or hard working people who make money but can afford limited leisure time. Maybe now you can picture the actions of these persons who are not careless litterers and never were. That is most of the people who can afford these trips, but there also are people of abundant means, and a plausible tiny percentage of those possibly might be slobs. But
not in public.
I feel I can make a judgment on who makes up these tours because my grandmother took me on guided tours abroad. As to the luxury slobs, trust fund kids or overgrown kids at the luxury hotel, they are alone in their room and their actions are not being observed by anyone, and no one is going to chastise the high-budget guests for giving the maid too much work. (And if the hotel sends a bill for damages, their accountant can pay it).
So consider the behavior of badly-behaving people under the cover of the darkened glass of their motor vehicle. In the same way these folks in the privacy of their rooms toss their garbage on the floor with impunity if they are that kind of persons. But on a guided tour, in a group, close with strangers, and nowhere to run, you get the best of their behavior and you'd never guess they are closet slobs. (But this type will be avoid restrictive supervised tours like this anyway). And "guided tour" means little time to take off and explore on your own. But I'll bet that's
not at all on an Antarctica guided tour.
So, no tossing trash on the tundra from these tourists.
This is
nothing at all like the park or the nature preserve open to the general public to come and go as they please. That's not possible in the Antarctic. You are taking a restricted tour in a group in a highly regulated place.. And you are on a ship, which by nature has many restrictions (My friend who took the tour said even the restrictions on the ship were extreme and unusual - nothing like any cruise she had been on).
People behave in a restricted way in close proximity to others. Think an elevator or plane. (Exceptions make good human interest news stories because they are unusual and shocking). Believe me, crowd control on guided tours abroad is extremely tame. This is a docile obedient polite crowd (that does not need warnings for the general-everybody/anybody crowd like public parks or people who buy common appliances). You could control this crowd, Aylen.
Seriously. Just bat your eyes and they'll do anything you say!
That would be a reasonable thing to warn people about. However, I think it would be rare - more likely
not allowed - for a tourist to go exploring on his own or with his buddy - no matter what prior hardy experience they can boast.
Yeah, but its weird isn't it? Just what is it that makes the polar environment so much more "delicate" than other environments that it requires ultra-unique and restrictive international laws and regulations? Oh, and so the newest fuel restriction will "reduce the total number of Antarctic passenger visits from more than 15,000 a year to about 6,400". So the guided tours will now be
less than half annually! And thats after whittling down from 45,000 in previous years. Hmm.. And this is
all about being greener. Su-re...
I see why my friend made such a point to tell me she was fortunate and privileged to take this trip, and that many people wait to be allowed the opportunity and many are not chosen. And now it will be even more so!
Maybe you are having a hard time seeing these anomalies because you are in the mode that organizations, governments and businesses just do things for reasonable reasons, that are all about our good, so this is the assumption to make. I don't have that issue. If you watch that Antarctica video I linked above (I would watch it on youtube on TV) your eyes would open.
It occurs to me that published rules and regulations you showed us, Aylen, are telling in another way. They are establishing their pretext for why they need to be rule-focused. They are giving you the idea that just like people who buy small appliances or go to the city parks, these vacationers must be controlled!
Or the Antarctica COULD end up looking like the
city park! So *phew!*, you can pat them on the back and rest assured that the environment in the Antarctica is being saved from tourists in parkas and snowshoes.
______________
P.S. I am finding it harder to find online the laws on restricting how much food can be carried on a ship near Antarctica and I don't have time to pursue the search now. But it
is a law. Just a very odd one for which it would be harder to justify because it is "protecting the environment".