'A real bad precedent': Australia criticised for Antarctica airport plan

Multi-billion-dollar project is unnecessary and damaging to wildlife, say scientists

Australia is planning to build Antarctica's biggest infrastructure project: a new airport and runway that would increase the human footprint in the world's greatest wilderness by an estimated 40%.

The mega-scheme is likely to involve blasting petrel rookeries, disturbing penguin colonies and encasing a stretch of the wilderness in more than 115,000 tonnes of concrete.