Desperate to share its breathtaking views of frozen landscapes, Greenland wants to attract more tourists.
However, its remote location and fragile environment pose its only challenges.
“The effects of global heating are at their most pronounced in the Arctic,” explained Michael Hall, a University of Canterbury professor and tourism expert, CGTN reported.
Global warming is accelerating “the loss of Arctic sea ice in the summer, [as well as] the melting of permafrost, ice shelves and glaciers,” he added, elements that give Greenland its unique landscape.
While tourists may still be left breathless by the vistas they can witness, locals are witnessing first-hand the effects of global warming across Greenland.
On the southwestern coast, in Maniitsoq, the sea ice has not been solid enough to walk on since 2018. Residents have also seen it shrink from year to year, as well as less abundant snowfalls.
According to the UN, tourism accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, most attributed to transportation.
So, it appears that Greenland is stuck between a rock and a hard place – wanting more tourists, but as a result, increasing their carbon footprint, speeding up the island’s demise.
Developing tourism in a fragile environment is an incredibly difficult balancing act.
There is “a kind of ‘last-chance tourism’, where visiting these endangered sites is about wanting to see them before they disappear,” said Emmanuel Salim, a geography lecturer at the University of Toulouse in France.
“Mitigation of the impacts of global heating on the Arctic is a global responsibility,” said Hall, adding that “current mitigation attempts are greatly inadequate.”
Greenlandic authorities insist they want a prudent development of the tourism sector to create jobs.
“In recent years, we’ve seen that young people have started to become tour operators,” Maniitsoq mayor Gideon Lyberth explained, adding that they are happy that those who left for Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, are now returning.
“Clearly such developments will usually be seen as a good idea, at least in the short term,” Hall said.
Greenland has many landscapes to explore, from sailing into the world’s largest fjord system to watching a humpback whale breach over the dark Greenland Sea, dog sledging tourism, and hiking trips to Norse ruins.
