Environmental audit is used to assess our activities. The system, adopted by all nations operating in Antarctica, involves a preliminary assessment to determine the scale of impact likely and whether more detailed assessment is necessary. A permit system has also been established to regulate and monitor certain activities such as entry to protected areas and the collection of samples. The Madrid Protocol established a system for area protection and management, which will be used to protect areas of outstanding environmental, scientific, historic, aesthetic or wilderness value. This system replaces the system of Specially Protected Areas and Sites of Special Scientific Interest previously designated by Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings.
Some environmental disturbance is an inevitable consequence of activities in Antarctica.
Environmental research and environmental management tools are used to reduce this disturbance. For example, research is being directed towards the potential for alternative energy sources to replace traditional fuels, the protected area system is used to ensure that vehicles are not used in particularly vulnerable landscapes and information from animal behavioural research is used as the basis for new guidelines to ensure that helicopters do not cause harm to aggregations of wildlife by flying too close. Other, potentially more serious impacts, are not inevitable and may never happen but our presence in Antarctica means that there is a finite possibility that they will occur. Of particular concern is the risk of introducing species, including disease-causing species. Introduced species have caused major environmental problems on every other continent of the world and have caused significant changes to the ecology of most subantarctic islands.