By Zimasa Matiwane and Amelia Nierenberg
Johannesburg: South Africa will not remove scientists from a remote base in Antarctica after investigating allegations that one of them physically assaulted and sexually harassed other researchers at the outpost, the country’s Environment Department said.
“There were no incidents that required any of the nine overwintering team members to be brought back to Cape Town,” Dion George, South Africa’s environment minister, said in a statement to The New York Times. He added, “All on the base is calm and under control.”
The accusations against a researcher at the Sanae IV base were first reported to the government last month, George said. Since then, South African authorities had been investigating the claims. But from more than 4300 kilometres away, and with limited access to the isolated scientists, investigators faced unique challenges.
The South African Sanae IV research station in Antarctica where the alleged assault occurred. Credit: Ross Hofmeyr, Wildmedia via Wikipedia
Antarctica is one of the most inhospitable places on Earth, with limited infrastructure and an extreme climate. Researchers there can be essentially cut off from the rest of the world for months on end. The unpredictable weather, icy surface and months of darkness make it nearly impossible to come and go freely.
Those harsh conditions have routinely made it difficult for countries to scrutinise researchers’ behaviour. For a continent without permanent residents, Antarctica has been host to a notable amount of crime and misconduct.
Jane Willenbring, who is now a professor at Stanford University, said that a renowned geologist harassed her when she was a graduate student during an expedition in 1999 and 2000. She filed a complaint in 2016, once she had received tenure.
In 2018, a researcher at a Russian station stabbed a colleague in what the Associated Press described as “an apparent emotional breakdown”.
And South Africa’s teams have run into trouble at remote outposts before. In 2017, a researcher on a base between the mainland and Antarctica took an axe to another’s laptop “because of a love triangle,” according to the summary of a parliamentary meeting.
Last month’s allegations of assault and harassment were first reported by The Sunday Times, a South African newspaper, which quoted what it described as an email sent to the government that expressed fear and described an assault, concerning behaviour and threatening language.
Antarctica’s harsh conditions have routinely made it difficult for countries to scrutinise researchers’ behaviour there.
The New York Times could not independently verify the contents of the email. George did not respond to a specific request to confirm them.
The alleged assault was reported less than a month after the team left South Africa on February 1 for its mission, which is set to last 13 months.
George said the scientist accused of the assault, whom he did not identify, had “written a formal apology to the victim”, “shown remorse” and has willingly undergone a psychological evaluation.
But the episode highlighted a worrisome pattern of misconduct at Antarctic research stations, several scientists said. Harassment during field work in Antarctica “is a known problem that is now being taken very seriously,” Mathieu Morlighem, an earth sciences professor at Dartmouth College, said in an email.
“When teams of people are deployed for weeks (or sometime months) in complete isolation and in extremely harsh environments, it is difficult for victims to report misbehaviour because you can’t get away from the team,” Morlighem said.
Researchers who travel to Antarctica often participate in rigorous predeployment vetting processes, much like astronauts preparing to go to space.
South Africa, for instance, looks at the “technical skills, psychological aspects, medical history and interpersonal relationship history” of potential base members, George said. If a researcher had any “negative outcomes” during those evaluations, they would not be appointed to the team, he said.
“At the time the vessel departed for Antarctica,” he said, “all was in order.”
There would be scientific considerations at play in any conversation about the removal of a scientist from the base.
Teams often rely on every member to keep a base functioning over the Antarctic winter, Dawn Sumner, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Davis, wrote in an email. It would likely not be possible for just one person to be removed from the base, Sumner said.
If a base were left unattended, “it would not be functional when people could return in the spring or summer,” Sumner said. “That would be a huge infrastructure loss for the South African Antarctic program.”
But the brutal Antarctic winter – most severe in July and August – is still to come.
“They are having these extreme problems and it isn’t even dark yet,” Sumner said. “It is a horrible situation.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.