Let us celebrate this October with a renewed spirit of collective purpose. At this year’s meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the member nations have a rare opportunity to turn principle into action: to reach a balanced deal that both declares the long-awaited Antarctic Peninsula Marine Protected Area and establishes a scientifically managed, spatially distributed increase in the krill fishing quota. It is within our grasp to prove that cooperation for the planet’s last pristine frontier is still possible, even in a divided world.
The nations gathered under CCAMLR must set aside the tensions of the day and step into the Antarctic arena guided by the foundational promise of the Antarctic Treaty, a place dedicated to peace and scientific research for the benefit of all global citizens.
This week, as delegates come before the CCAMLR, they must answer a bold question: Will we honor that founding covenant, or let our rivalries fracture it? The choice is still ours, but only if we summon the courage to act beyond narrow national interests.
The Southern Ocean is changing fast. Sea ice is retreating at record pace, waters are warming, and krill, the region’s keystone species, under growing pressure from both climate change and concentrated fishing.
Earlier this year, CCAMLR took the unprecedented step of closing the krill fishery before the end of the season, after the annual quota was exhausted three months early. This followed the body’s failure last year to renew a conservation rule that required fishing fleets to spread their effort over a larger area around the Antarctic Peninsula. As predicted, fishing concentrated in small “hotspots.”
Nearly all the catch came from the Antarctic Peninsula region, depleting krill congregations that whales, penguins, and seals depend on for more than 95% of their diet.
The system is under visible strain. The question is no longer whether CCAMLR should act, but whether it can act with unity and foresight.
In 2018, Chile and Argentina proposed the 670,000-square-kilometer Domain 1 (Antarctic Peninsula) Marine Protected Area (MPA) to safeguard these critical feeding and breeding grounds. Updated research identified the need for no-take zones in areas like the Bransfield Strait and Elephant Island, key feeding grounds that overlap with krill operations. Responding to these findings, Chilean and Argentinian scientists refined the MPA boundaries to include a protected southern corridor where krill are projected to re-aggregate as sea ice continues to recede.
This is not a theory. It is science in service of our planetary responsibilities.
Over the past 23 years, CCAMLR has struggled to agree on new protected areas, managing to create only two: around the South Orkney Islands and the Ross Sea. The inability to advance further reflects a pattern of geopolitical tensions and short-term economic priorities overshadowing long-term planetary stewardship.
However this year, despite global tensions, an opportunity exists to strike a win-win deal and one that honors both science and pragmatism:
- Adopt the Antarctic Peninsula MPA as the next protected area, with a 35-year review clause mirroring that of the Ross Sea MPA, ensuring science-based reassessment and flexibility.
- Implement a spatially explicit EBFM system for krill fishing: set quotas by sub-regions, reviewed annually by the Scientific Committee to reflect shifting ecosystems and climate data.
- Permit moderate quota adjustments, but distribute fishing effort more evenly across zones to prevent localized depletion and protect predator foraging grounds.
- Empower the Scientific Committee to finalize the working definition and guidelines for MPAs. Claims that definitions are lacking no longer hold water. The expertise and models already exist.
Such a package allows everyone to leave Hobart with progress in hand. Nature wins. The fishing industry wins. Multilateralism wins.
Chile and Argentina, as stewards of the southern gateway to Antarctica, have shown consistency and courage in advancing science-based protections. Yet they cannot, and should not, stand alone.
It is time for all CCAMLR nations to remember the legacy they inherited from the Antarctic Treaty’s founders: a legacy of cooperation above conflict, and science above politics.
Let us leave geopolitical quarrels on land, and let the icy waters of the Southern Ocean remind us that we are capable of working together even in a divided world.
If CCAMLR can find consensus this October, through courage, science, and compromise, it will send a powerful signal that multilateralism is still alive, and that even at the bottom of the Earth, humanity can still rise to its highest ideals.
Let this be the year when the frozen continent rekindles hope. Not only for Antarctica, but for the world.
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