The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) convened October 24-28, 2016 in Hobart, Australia for a most important meeting. All 25 member countries agreed on a joint proposal by the United States and New Zealand to establish an area of 1.55 million km2 in the Ross Sea (Antarctica) with special protection from anthropogenic activities. This area is the size of France, Germany and Spain combined.
This area in the southern hemisphere is home to as many as 10,000 unique species that populate the ocean, which represents about 15% of the world's oceans. The Ross Sea is considered one of the last places where marine ecosystems are intact since there is no pollution or overfishingâeuros¦
©WWF
"The Ross Sea is considered to be one of the few remaining intact wilderness areas on Earth." says Chris Johnson, Marine Science Officer at WWF-Australia. "It is home to one-third of the world's Adelie penguin population, one-quarter of all emperor penguins, one-third of all Antarctic petrels and more than half of all South Pacific Weddell seals." adds Isabelle Autissier, President of WWF France.
This new Marine Protected Area (MPA) will come into effect in December 2017. Certain activities will be limited or totally prohibited to meet certain objectives:
- Conservation
- Habitat protection
- Ecosystem monitoring
- Fisheries Management
72% of the MPA will be a no-take zone, where all fishing activity will be prohibited. In other parts, fishing for fish and krill will be allowed, but only for research purposes.
© Benjamin Dumas
Andrew Wright, Executive Secretary of CCAMLR, acknowledges that this decision has been a long time coming "Incredibly complex negotiations have continued through six annual meetings and intersessional workshops of CCAMLR, in which many member countries have placed their hopes and concerns. There are still several details to be worked out with respect to the MPA, but the establishment of the protected area is not in question and we are particularly proud to have reached this point."
As early as 2011, proposals for the Ross Sea region had been put forward by the United States and New Zealand. The CCAMLR Scientific Committee had invited the Commission to review the proposals and advised the Commission on how to advance them. Each year from 2012 to 2015, the proposal grew in both basic science and concrete details, such as the exact location of the MPA boundaries. All details of the MPA implementation will be negotiated through the development of a specific monitoring and evaluation plan.
© Benjamin Dumas
The decision to establish an MPA in the Ross Sea follows CCAMLR's establishment in 2009 of the first high seas MPA, the South Orkney Islands South Shelf MPA, an area covering 94,000 km2 in the South Atlantic.
"This decision represents an almost unprecedented level of international cooperation around a large marine ecosystem of important benthic and pelagic habitats. It is clear that it was worth the effort, as all Members now recognize that this decision was the right one and will work together to successfully implement this MPA." adds Wright.
©CCAMLR
Protecting marine species
The objectives of MPAs are to protect marine species, biodiversity, habitats, feeding grounds and nurseries, and to preserve historical and cultural sites. They can help fish stocks recover, promote ecosystem processes, facilitate the monitoring of ecosystem changes, and preserve biological diversity.
Areas closed to fishing, or where fishing activities are restricted, can be used by scientists as a comparison with areas open to fishing. Scientists can then study the relative impacts of fishing and other changes, such as those resulting from climate change. This can help to better understand the various variables affecting the overall health of the marine environment.
© Benjamin Dumas
