PERU fishing with guts to report…
Efforts to protect the ecosystem of the Ross Sea, Antarctica, could be hampered by tensions between some Antarctic nations, said the Executive Secretary of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).
At the annual meeting of the international organization held this week in Tasmania, its 25 member countries, which include Australia, China, Russia, the United States and the European Union (EU), will evaluate two separate proposals for the creation of marine protected.
One proposal, promoted Australia, France and the EU, advocates for the protection of one million square kilometers of waters east of the Antarctic, and would allow commercial fishing and research if operators believe conservation values, reported The Australian.
The other proposal, the US and New Zealand defended establishes protection of 1.32 million square kilometers in the Ross Sea, an area that would be almost entirely closed to fishing.
The Executive Secretary of CCAMLR, Andrew Wright, said he could not predict how they will act the member nations during the next fortnight, but added that it is unreasonable to expect that other multilateral issues will not enter into negotiations.
Furthermore, the Director of the Australian Antarctic Division and leader of the Australian delegation at the meeting, Tony Fleming, rejected the idea that Russia and other countries use the power of relationships to derail the talks.
Fleming also commented that some countries are concerned that the initial proposals are too broad and complex.
Therefore, members of the Antarctic Ocean Alliance urged CCAMLR to keep their commitments to conservation and to approve both proposals, as has the legal backing to do so.
Meanwhile, environmental groups around the world claim to approve CCAMLR marine reserves.
“We have to go back to the Antarctic Treaty, signed in the 50s, in the middle of the Cold War, despite the missiles literally ran together their capital, these countries met and designated Antarctica as a zone of peace”Told The Australian Bob Zuur, Program Director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
“Our view is that the commitment to truth has been assumed that these proposals have come to what really is a minimum level”, he stressed.
Andrea Kavanagh, director of the Global Campaign for Conservation of Penguins Pew Charitable Trusts, said: “It is one of the healthiest ecosystems left on the planet. We want to preserve it for that reason, but also because we want to use it as a reference climate zone. These areas are vital to scientists studying how ecosystems adapt to climate change”.
Meanwhile, scientists believe that Antarctica is already showing signs of vulnerability to climate change and fish populations are declining worldwide, displacing fishing fleets increasingly new territories to find the few remaining populations.
SOURCE: Fis.com
