New Zealand’s two big glaciers, Fox and Franz Josef, are now only accessible to tourists by air and their retreat has been highlighted over the way global warming is impacting on businesses that depend on ice and snow.
Glacier-related tourism on the West Coast directly contributes at least $100 million a year to local economies, New York Times reports.
But now at Fox the river has changed course cutting the trail up and Franz Josef lost hiking access in 2012.
Helicopter landings are the only way to get on the glaciers now.
“There is no doubt that the retreat has been caused by climate change,” Brian Anderson, a glaciologist at Victoria University in Wellington told the NYT.
An academic survey of tourism in New Zealand’s glacier region, about two-thirds of respondents said they would still travel to the Fox and Franz Josef area, even if the glaciers were accessible only by air.
About one-fifth, however, said they would not be willing to pay for a helicopter flight to walk on them.
A beneficiary has been Glacier Explorers which offers boat tours on the lake near the Tasman Glacier. Its manager, Bede Ward, said the number of his annual customers had soared in the last six years, to 25,000 from 7000, primarily because tourists want to see icebergs break off the glacier and fall into the lake.
“I guess you could say global warming is having a positive effect for Glacier Explorers,” Ward told NYT.
At Franz Josef Glacier Guides, the number of staff members has fallen to 35 from 60 since 2012.
Rob Jewell, the chief executive of Fox Glacier Guiding, said the loss of hiking access since April had taken a “significant” toll on business.
Noise from glacier-bound helicopters could annoy some tourists, said Wayne Costello of the Department of Conservation.
“It’s a really important chance for us to connect with people and say, ‘Actually, if you value your environment, this is what’s happening in the world, and these are the impacts of humans living on the planet,’” he said.
Around the world, climate change was having uneven economic effects on tourism operators whose businesses depended on ice and snow, NYT reported.
It had, for example, hurt some ski areas while potentially benefiting competitors whose higher elevations made them less vulnerable to snowmelt, said Daniel Scott, a geographer at the University of Waterloo in Canada who studies links between climate change and tourism.
