The Fishery on Antarctic Krill: Defining an Ecosystem Approach to Management

Abstract

Estimates of the standing stock of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) have ranged from less than 100 million tons to over a billion tons. While considerable uncertainty is associated with these estimates, the fishery on Antarctic krill has the potential to be among the largest in the world. The harvest of Antarctic krill is currently managed by the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), part of the Antarctic Treaty system. In this review, we examine the political context and management approach of CCAMLR; we review the current understanding of natural controls on population growth of the resource; and we discuss future options for CCAMLR. We conclude that the political foundation for the CCAMLR mandate of an “ecosystem approach to management” is sound; that substantial progress has been made toward interpreting and implementing the Convention; and that environmental factors may exert a substantial influence on krill recruitment and population growth. We also note that the current fishery in the southwest Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean (ca. 100,000 tons per year) is small compared with the precautionary limit established for this area by CCAMLR (1,500,000 tons per year), but fishing effort concentrated near colonies of land-breeding krill predators may pose a threat; that improvements to the current krill yield model are warranted; and that uncertainty regarding the character of natural variability in krill abundance and regarding the future development of the krill fishery act to obscure a strategic vision for CCAMLR. We discuss the likelihood of future scenarios and the appropriate options for CCAMLR, and we suggest a general outline for the development of a management scheme based on ecosystem process monitoring. We conclude with a comment regarding the value of a conservation ethic in the face of uncertainty.