IT WAS EARLY 1984. It started with a phone call: can you do an environmental impact assessment of the effect of mining in Antarctica for us? asked a newly acquired friend from the local Friends of the Earth group. I had just completed some environmental impact assessment work for a company in Newcastle, New South Wales, and had met this friend at our ‘between jobs’ casual work. His wife was working for the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, an international coalition of organisations working to protect the Antarctic region from excessive human impact.

The idea of conducting an environmental impact assessment across a distant and enormous continent – where little information was available and about which I knew little – was both laughable and intriguing. By the end of the year, I found myself campaigning full time for the protection of this amazing place.