Antarctic Ocean Conservation Body under pressure to live up to its name

HOBART, Australia, Oct. 15, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Governments responsible for safeguarding Antarctic marine life will be meeting over the next two weeks at the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)- from 16-27 October in Hobart, Australia. A key topic on the agenda continues to be progressing the designation of three large-scale marine protected area (MPA) proposals in the East Antarctic, Weddell Sea and Antarctic Peninsula that have been stalled for years.

This is the second time this year that countries can act on these protection proposals, following an additional Special CCAMLR meeting dedicated to this topic that took place in Santiago in June. The Special meeting disappointingly ended with no further progress due to a couple of countries thwarting the full consensus needed.

"It's not only environmental groups, but also conservation-minded governments that are becoming increasingly frustrated at CCAMLR's lack of protection. We know it can make decisions to approve fishing, and they should be able to do so on conservation. It's a disgrace that exploitation is prioritized over protection. It's time for CCAMLR to get the job done," said Claire Christian, Executive Director of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition.

CCAMLR is increasingly coming under the international spotlight for its poor track record on conservation, with the last significant action taken in 2016 with the agreement of the Ross Sea MPA. Since then, the climate crisis has accelerated, with news last month of Antarctica breaking a new record for the lowest annual maximum amount of sea ice around the continent by an extra million square kilometres.

"This year the Southern Ocean experienced record high temperatures and record low sea ice levels, which researchers believe caused the death of all emperor penguin chicks in four colonies, totaling an estimated 9,000 chicks. The speed of change in the Antarctic is alarming, but even more alarming is CCAMLR's failure to take any action this past decade to address the impacts of climate change. MPAs will not stop climate change, but they will help provide resilience to the ecosystem. It is time for CCAMLR to break the impasse and make good on its overdue promise to create a network of MPAs in Antarctica," said Andrea Kavanagh, director of Antarctic and Southern Ocean conservation work for The Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project.

Just last month the UN Secretary General announced that only 15% of the Sustainable Development Goals are on track, and many are even going backwards. At the same time over 80 countries signed onto a new High Seas Treaty, signaling international commitment to further safeguarding ocean marine life.

"With such energy and momentum behind this new High Seas Treaty, multilateralism is clearly not dead in the water. But where governments continue to fail is translating these international commitments into actual positive change, which is what we are experiencing year on year in CCAMLR. The planet's future needs to come first," said Jehki Härkönen, ocean policy advisor at Greenpeace International.

Other key issues on the agenda include measures to update the management of krill - a small shrimp-like creature that is the lynchpin of the Antarctic ecosystem and plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. With plans to increase fishing in the region, environmental organisations are calling for strengthened requirements for approving fisheries measures.

"Highly concentrated krill fishing in the region, coupled with runaway climate change, are putting krill under threat, and in turn wildlife and essential ecosystems services. The balance between conservation and fishing needs to be urgently reset," said Emily Grilly, Antarctic Conservation Manager for WWF.

Media contacts:

●  English – Barbara Cvrkel, [email protected], +1 2025105670

SOURCE Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition