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AUSTRALIA-ANTARCTICA-ENVIRONMENT-CONSERVATION
Plans for world’s largest ocean sanctuary in Antarctic blocked
SYDNEY, Nov 3, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A plan to create the world’s largest marine
sanctuary in Antarctic waters was shot down when a key conservation summit
failed to reach a consensus, with environmentalists on Saturday decrying a
lack of scientific foresight.
Member states of the organisation tasked with overseeing the sustainable
exploitation of the Southern Ocean failed at an annual meeting Friday to
agree over the a 1.8 million square kilometre (1.1 million square miles)
maritime protection zone.
The proposed sanctuary — some five times the size of Germany — would ban
fishing in a vast area in the Weddell sea, protecting key species including
seals, penguins and whales.
Consensus is needed from all 24 members of the Commission for the
Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and the European
Union.
But environmental groups say Russia and China — whose concerns over
compliance issues and fishing rights have proved key stumbling blocks in the
past — along with Norway, played a part in rejecting the plan.
“This was an historic opportunity to create the largest protected area on
Earth in the Antarctic: safeguarding wildlife, tackling climate change and
improving the health of our global oceans,” Greenpeace’s Frida Bengtsson said
in a statement on Saturday.
“Twenty-two delegations came here to negotiate in good faith but, instead,
serious scientific proposals for urgent marine protection were derailed by
interventions which barely engaged with the science and made a mockery of any
pretence of real deliberation.”
Antarctica is home to penguins, seals, toothfish, whales and huge numbers
of krill, a staple food for many species.
They are considered critical for scientists to study how marine ecosystems
function and to understand the impacts of climate change on the ocean.
Plans were set out in 2009 to establish a series of marine protected area
(MPAs) in the Southern Ocean allowing marine life to migrate between areas
for breeding and foraging, but it has been slow going.
The CCAMLR summit, held in each year in Hobart, Australia, was able in
2016 to establish a massive US and New Zealand-backed MPA around the Ross Sea
covering an area roughly the size of Britain, Germany and France combined.
As well as the huge Weddell Sea sanctuary, proposals to estbalish two
further MPAs in East Antarctica and the Western Antarctic Peninsula were also
dashed this year. Together, the three zones would cover close to three
million square kilometres.
Andrea Kavanagh, head of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Antarctic and Southern
Ocean work, described the failure to achieve an MPA designation as
“discouraging”.
“Without an East Antarctic MPA, critical foraging grounds for emperor and
Adelie penguins, toothfish, and many other species will not be safeguarded,”
she said in a statement.
The CCAMLR released a statement saying the new MPAs were the “subject of
much discussion” and would be considered again at next year’s meeting.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1243 hrs