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Once it inspired a fierce race between nations. Today the battle is between travel operators. Antarctica, the worlds last great wilderness, has become the ultimate adventure-holiday destination and now there is a guidebook to prove it.

Antarctica: The Travellers Guide, to be published (in Britain) by Images later this month, is the first visitors guidebook produced about the icy continent. Thirty years ago there would have been little point in writing this book f Antarctica was almost exclusively the haunt of scientists, said the guides author, Dr Bernard Stonehouse, 70, a scientist at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, who has spent 30 summers in Antarctica. Today the penguin trail is well-established.

There are tales of hump-back whales resting their noses on the prows of ships, trips to the colonies of rare Emperor penguins, and details of how to visit the hut of Ernest Shackleton, the British explorer who in 1908 made a bid to reach the South Pole.

Then wildernesses were seen as threatening and fearful places.

Times have changed. Antarctica has become a major tourist destination and the fastest-growing sector of adventure travel. Five years ago just 3,000 tourists visited the continent. Last year the figure was 10,000. Tourist operators, planning to expand capacity, confidently predict numbers will continue to grow.

So who wants to go? People see Antarctica as the last untouched frontier f its a chance to make a once-in-a-lifetime voyage. said a representative of Noble Caledonia Ltd, a company that sells cruises to the frozen wasteland, starting at #2,400 (about $4,800 Cdn).

But there are environmental concerns. My colleagues are not entirely sure about this tourist business, said Dr Stonehouse. Last week he convened a conference at Cambridge with scientists from all over the world to discuss how best to protect the environment of Antarctica, whose stretching plains of ice make up 10 per cent of the planet.

Current operators have been highly responsible at self-regulation and have not, so far, damaged the Antarctic environment, he said. But as new operators enter the market, as they undoubtedly will, this must be monitored by an appropriate body of management to ensure that the landing sites have the kind of protection given to recreation areas elsewhere in the world.

Dr Stonehouse said the idea to produce a guide book came six years ago when he began working with a team of research students to study the environmental impact of tourism on Antarctica.

His love affair with the continent began much earlier, in 1947, when, as a young pilot and meteorological officer with the Royal Navy he spent three years stationed there. After being seconded to a scientific survey group he discovered a rare colony of Emperor penguins; only the third known colony in the world.

The find, and the subsequent studies he made while living in tents, near the colony, in temperatures as low as minus 45 degrees centigrade, decided his future. He gained a degree in zoology at University College London then a doctorate at Oxford f on penguins. He has since spent four winters and 30 summers in the Antarctic region.

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