Agreement Failed: No New Antarctic Protected Areas

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This was announced by environmental protection organizations in the Chilean capital on Friday after the meeting (local time). However, scientific studies have shown that the protection of the Southern Ocean is becoming increasingly urgent.

“Unfortunately, this special session ended as the previous six annual meetings ended: two countries blocked the process of the other 25 CCAMLR members making progress toward a network of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean,” said the Director for the Southern Ocean. conservation of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean at the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project, Andrea Kavanagh.

The US, EU, UK, Australia, Norway, Uruguay, New Zealand, India, South Korea, Ukraine, Argentina and Chile had designated three protected areas in East Antarctica, the Weddell Sea and the Antarctic Peninsula with a total area of ​​about four million square kilometers has been proposed. This corresponds to about one percent of the world’s oceans.

“The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) plays the most important role in protecting the Southern Ocean. For more than eleven years, it has not achieved its goal of establishing a representative network of marine protected areas,” says Sascha Müller-Kraenner, Managing Director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe. Urgent action is now needed at the highest political level at the forthcoming CCAMLR meetings to advance the designation of the existing proposals of three marine protected areas.

(SDA)

Source: Blick