The future of the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands marine protected area in a changing environment: The choice between industrial fisheries, or ecosystem protection

Abstract

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) comprise an Overseas Territory of the UK. For over two centuries, the islands and surrounding waters were subject to serial over-exploitation of commercially valuable marine species. First seals, then whales, and later some species of fish were harvested to virtual economic extinction. Today, exploitation is strictly regulated: through the multilateral Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources; through the commercial whaling moratorium of the International Whaling Commission; and now, increasingly, through local sovereign government legislation. Commercial fisheries still operate for three species of fish and one species of crustacean, Antarctic krill. Here, I consider aspects of these fisheries, to help inform the current review of the SGSSI Marine Protected Area (MPA), highlighting how future management must take into account important ongoing changes in this biodiverse ecosystem. Two issues are of paramount importance: ongoing recovery of baleen whale species; and climate change. Both increase uncertainty for fisheries managers, so that considerations about their implications must now be directly included into the management of harvested and dependent species. With the recovery of some previously exploited species, and ongoing recovery of others, the MPA could now be managed with additional ecologically-appropriate large no-take areas, commensurate with increasing levels of ocean protection advocated for by a growing number of scientists and governments. Spatial protection reflecting the habitat use of baleen whales and their prey, krill, would, through umbrella protection, also protect other biodiversity integral to the operation of the marine ecosystem.