2023-10-25 14:00:19
A colony of chinstrap penguins (“Pygoscelis antarcticus”) on an iceberg off the South Orkney Islands, Antarctica, March 9, 2023. DAVID KEYTON / AP
Although Antarctica is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world and the area of the sea ice is shrinking around the South Pole, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR, according to its English name) risks, this year again, being distinguished by its immobility.
Like every autumn, this organization, with twenty-seven member states and welcoming ten observer countries, meets in Hobart, Australia. After a first week during which scientific committees were held, the delegations will debate in plenary assembly until October 27 possible new measures to preserve the white continent and its living resources. As such, the CCAMLR sets in particular rules governing fishing for krill, a small crustacean which is the basis of the diet of penguins and marine mammals, and toothfish (for two species: Dissostichus eleginoides et Dissostichus mawsoni), ice fish, squid and crab.
Establishing a network of marine protected areas is one of its reasons for existing. The first installation of one of them, in 2009, took place in the south of the Orkney Islands. The latest, that of the Ross Sea, an immense sanctuary of 1.12 million square kilometers, was obtained after five years of negotiations and dates back to 2016. It has therefore been seven years since any project has been blocked, because the commission’s decisions are made by consensus. But since then, Moscow and Beijing have been reluctant.
“The key, presidential diplomacy”
The declaration by the G20 heads of state in New Delhi on September 10, however, expressly mentioned their ” support “ to CCAMLR in order to “establish a representative system of marine protected areas based on the most reliable scientific data”. This commitment is a priori endorsed by Australia, China, France, India, Japan, Norway, Russia and the European Union, all of which are also members of the commission which monitors Antarctica.
In this photograph released by the NGO Sea Shepherd Global, the Norwegian boat Antarctic Endeavor fishes for krill while a whale surfaces to feed, in Antarctica, March 6, 2023. MIKA VAN DER GUN / AP
“Progress in protecting Antarctica’s vital ecosystems has stalled, analysis by Emil Dediu, for the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy. However, today it is urgent to take climate change into account in decisions. The white continent is changing with the modification of the pH of the ocean and the rising waters, the melting of the ice, the invasive species which are approaching. » The Pew Foundation is a stakeholder, alongside Friends of the Earth, Conservation International, Greenpeace and WWF among others, of a group of NGOs, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, which has official status. observer in Hobart. She fears the lack of significant progress, given the disappointing results of the CCAMLR meeting entirely devoted to marine protected areas held in June in Chile. “It did not result in any road map, reports Emil Dediu. The key at CCAMLR is presidential diplomacy. Barack Obama himself had discussed directly with his counterparts in Beijing and Moscow to obtain protection for the Ross Sea in 2016. We must not lose hope: was the Antarctic treaty not signed in 1959, in the middle of the Cold War? »
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