Competing values on the Antarctic high seas: CCAMLR and the challenge of marine-protected areas

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The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) has been lauded as a leader in high seas conservation. Highlighting its leadership, CCAMLR joined the international movement to designate a representative network of marine-protected areas (MPAs) throughout the world’s oceans by 2012. Over the last decade, CCAMLR has been working towards this goal convening a series of workshops and celebrating their first Southern Ocean MPA in 2009. In 2011, plans for large MPAs in the Ross Sea and East Antarctic came up for discussion but their adoption has stalled due to Member States’ objections, with the primary concern being interference with fishing. In July 2013, CCAMLR’s Scientific Committee and Commission convened a special intersessional meeting dedicated to making progress on the Ross Sea and East Antarctic MPAs. Progress was again stalled due to Member’s objections and the Russian delegation’s concerns over the legal capacity of CCAMLR to adopt Southern Ocean MPAs. To address potential barriers to MPA adoption, including fishing interests, I provide a synthesis of the CCAMLR MPA process to date and then analyse CCAMLR fishing trends from 1982 to 2012. The results show that since 1982, the number of fishing States has increased four-fold, correlating with the rise of toothfish fisheries (sold on the market as “Chilean sea bass”). While historically, and in the present, krill (Euphasia superba) comprise the largest catch, toothfish (Dissostichus spp.) bring in 20 times more profit. While the MPA proposals under consideration in 2012/2013 were designed specifically to balance conservation and fishing interests, they would displace some toothfish fishing and would limit potential future access to Southern Ocean resources. The shift in balance among fishing States along with the increasing pressure to find more toothfish fisheries may be interfering with CCAMLR’s ability to effectively implement MPAs in the Convention Area.