Colombian Historian Natalia Jaramillo (right), with seal on Livingston Island, in the Antarctic.
Until recently, Antarctic explorers have mostly been men from developed countries – but now the last frontiers of the frozen continent are being mapped via drone by a team lead by a female pilot from the mountainous, equatorial country of Colombia.
Natalia Jaramillo, 33, is a geography masters student at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia, who grew up with a combined passion for both aviation and maps – which she now puts together as an Antarctic researcher.
She says after completing a history degree and her pilot’s license, a series of hard experiences thwarted her dreams of working as a commercial airline pilot.
A quirk of fate saw her take up a job at the Colombian Ocean Commission, which in addition to being the government agency studying Colombia’s Pacific and Caribbean coasts, it is also in charge of the Colombian Antarctic Program.
She was working there in 2014 when Colombia mounted their first ever independent Antarctic mission. After a mad dash to submit a last minute application, she was able to go along as the first Colombian historian to ever visit the continent.
But on her next trip, she had a new mission: testing out an Ebee Plus survey drone in the harsh, cold conditions of Half Moon Island, an Antarctic island in the South Shetlands.
Jaramillo says that despite advances in mapping technologies, the last map of Half Moon island was a UK hydrological map from 1968.
The MapTartic Project took drone pictures at 50, 100 and 200 meters of attitude. These photos were then blended together to create an orthorectified (photo-realistic) map.
Jaramillo is due back in Antarctica at the end of 2019, to continue mapping, this time with a quadcopter – and to see what has changed from season to season.
But why does Colombia, a tropical, Andean country recovering from more than 50 years of civil conflict, have an Antarctic program in the first place?
Miami-based Colombian journalist Angela Posada-Swafford, author of the Spanish-language book Hielo: Bitácora de una expedicionaria antarctica says ocean currents, wind currents and biology link the two regions.
For example, Colombia’s Pacific coast welcomes over 35,000 whale watchers every year – and the whales who give birth there spend much of the year in rich Antarctic feeding grounds.
“Antarctica is like the master of ceremonies of every part of the globe, especially the tropical regions,” Posada-Swafford said, adding the tropics will be the region most affected by Antarctic ice melt.
“A Colombian researcher from the Pacific coast put some buoys in Antarctica to see how waves that begin on the antarctic peninsula crash into the Pacific coast of Colombia.“
Compared to countries like Norway, Australia and the US, Colombia’s involvement in Antarctic exploration has been relatively recent, only signing the Antarctic Treaty in 1989.
Posada-Swafford says there are strategic reasons for Colombia to become more involved there because if it wants to become a voting member of the Antarctic treaty organisation, it needs to have a constant and active scientific program.
“It is important for a developing nation like Colombia to start extending bridges and build relationships with important scientists from across the globe, strengthening science diplomacy, “ she said.
And Jaramillo is not the only Colombian woman to be breaking barriers in Antarctica.
In 2018, Colombian physicist Paola Guerrero went there with 75 other female scientists, engineers and communicators, as part of the Homeward Bound leadership project, reading letters from Colombian school children to the penguins.
“We are making progress,” Jarramillo said, ”70 years ago, women weren’t even allowed in Antarctica.”
