Survey of wilderness and aesthetic values of Antarctica

[Paul Ward]

Received by email (and edited a bit):

I am an ex-Fid; I was a G/A at Rothera from 1980 ? 1981 and then again from 1983 ? 1986. I am now a fisheries scientist in Australia and a part-time PhD student at the University of Melbourne.

My thesis is on wilderness and aesthetic values of Antarctica, the origins
of which lie in the Madrid Protocol and the requirement to protect these
values. I am working closely with the Australian Antarctic Division where
I used to work some time ago. I was wondering whether you could help me advertise a survey I am running for my PhD research? The aim of the survey is to test a series of hypotheses about aesthetic responses and the assessment of wilderness. The survey is on a University of Melbourne website at:

http://www.geom.unimelb.edu.au/survey/Antarctica.

It comprises a series of 30 scenes of Antarctic landscapes and, for each scene, you are asked to give your aesthetic preference rating, decide whether you think the scene represents wilderness and provide a suitability rating for four adjectives. You are also asked for some brief demographic details. The survey is anonymous and it has been approved by the University?s human research ethics committee. I estimate that the survey takes about 20 minutes to complete. I would be very pleased if you could participate in the survey and I wondered whether you might possibly put up a link to it on your website?

So far I have had 242 responses from around the world but I am aiming for
300.

I hope very much that you will participate and will be able to help.
Thanks very much. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards

Rupert Summerson
PhD Candidate
The University of Melbourne