Global Leaders Must Act to Protect Antarctica's Southern Ocean

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the international body charged with conserving Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, ended its 2024 annual meeting with a major setback for Southern Ocean conservation – blocking all new marine protected area (MPA) proposals and eliminating an existing krill fishery management measure that distributed fishing to reduce pressure on krill predators like penguins, seals and whales.

Despite broad support in July 2024 for a package of new more protective krill fisheries management measures and the designation of an MPA for the Antarctic Peninsula, final negotiations collapsed.

This failure is especially disheartening as it marked the best opportunity in years for consensus on an MPA and comes amid escalating climate effects, including record-low sea ice and alarming penguin chick mortality. By failing to act, CCAMLR is delaying urgently needed steps to address this ecosystem collapse and undermining global goals to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030, raising serious questions about the Commission’s ability to fulfill its conservation mandate.

However, with the UK assuming chairmanship of CCAMLR this year, 2025 offers a renewed opportunity to designate a network of MPAs, starting with the Antarctic Peninsula MPA, and adopt science-based krill fisheries management measures that protect one of the planet’s most vulnerable and valuable marine ecosystems.