The First Marine Park in the Antarctic

Around one-third of the world's Adélie penguins live in what will become Antarctica's largest Marine Protected Area (credit: A. Turney/Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013-2014)
It’s taken more than five years of bruising negotiations but on Friday the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources made the wonderful announcement that the Ross Sea will become the first ever Marine Protected Area in the south. In Hobart the European Union and 24 nations hammered out a deal that more than one million square kilometres – the largest remaining pristine marine ecosystem left on the planet – will be protected for at least 35 years, a first in international waters. The practical upshot is fishing will be banned in a region equivalent in size to the combined areas of France and Spain where one-third of the world's Adélie penguins, one third of all Antarctic petrels, and over half of all South Pacific Weddell seals live. This new marine park will create a vast natural laboratory for studying Antarctic life and the impacts of climate change. Perversely, a major stumbling block was Russian concerns over access for its fleet to catch the highly valued Antarctic toothfish. This new deal will direct the Russian ships to other areas where they will catch fewer immature toothfish, protecting future stocks and reducing competition with orcas (more popularly known as ‘killer whales’).

This is a massive first step in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s call for 30% of the world’s oceans to be protected and is the first of several proposed marine protected areas off the Antarctic continent. A fantastic achievement that show’s how Antarctica can bring the world together. A huge congratulations to all!

 If you would like to learn more there is an excellent article on The Guardian at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/28/worlds-largest-marine-park-created-in-ross-sea-in-antarctica-in-landmark-deal




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

500 years of drought and flood: trees and corals reveal Australia’s climate history

Image
500 years of drought and flood: trees and corals reveal Australia's climate history Patrick Baker , University of Melbourne ; Chris Turney , UNSW Australia , and Jonathan Palmer , UNSW Australia Australia is the land of drought and flooding rains, and in a recent paper we’ve shown that’s been the case for more than 500 years. As part of our Australia and New Zealand Drought Atlas we’ve published the most detailed record of drought and wet periods (or “pluvials”) since 1500. The data reveal that despite the severity of the Millennium Drought, the five worst single years of drought happened before 1900. But 2011 was the wettest year in our 513-year record. The dominant theme of Australia’s drought history is variability. We may get one year of extremely wet conditions (for example in 2011) or we might get six years of extremely dry conditions (such as 2003-2009). North Queensland may be flooded out while Victoria suffers with drought. Or in extreme circumstances, the entir...
Read more

The Tropics and the Furious Fifties

Image
There’s an old sailor’s expression: “Below 40 degrees south there is no law, below 50 degrees south there is no God.” Since the sixteenth century, sailors have spoken in awe of the violent westerly winds and seas they experienced fighting their way across the Southern Ocean. With few landmasses to slow them down, the winds found across 40 degrees latitude often reach speeds of twenty-five knots—about 40 percent stronger than their northern hemisphere counterparts—earning them the title the “roaring forties.” As shipping pushed farther south, explorers realized that these winds form part of a vast storm belt that includes the “furious fifties” and “screaming sixties,” names more reminiscent of terrible rock bands than a major part of our planet’s circulation system. The early hunters and traders didn’t understand it at the time, but these winds are created by a procession of low-pressure systems carried east by the jet stream, a river of cold air hurtling and twisting round the Antarct...
Read more

Death of a colony

Image
Cape Denison holds a special place in the history of Antarctic exploration. A small outcrop of rocks on the remote East Antarctic coastline, Cape Denison is forever associated with one of the most spectacular and often forgotten tales of survival. A century ago it was the main base of operations for one of the great explorers of the south: the Australian scientist Sir Douglas Mawson . Privately funded, three bases and one research ship supported a science team that explored a region the size of the United States between 1911 and 1914. Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition, however, suffered terribly during their time at Cape Denison: a sudden turn of events led to tragedy on the ice, the death of two men, allegations of cannibalism and with the return of winter sea ice, an extended stay in Antarctica. But when they first came upon Cape Denison, Mawson was ecstatic. Greeted by squawking penguins: ‘ We were soon inside a beautiful, miniature harbour completely land-locked. The su...
Read more