Antarctic Ocean Alliance MPA Proposal Flawed

The call overnight by the Antarctic Ocean Alliance (AOA) for an extended marine protected area (MPA) targeted to close down the toothfish fishery is flawed on scientific, conservation and political grounds.

1. The science does not indicate that fishing is having any adverse impact on toothfish stocks or the ecology of the Ross Sea shelf (that part of the Ross Sea that comprises its bulk). Indeed New Zealand could take a leaf out of the CCAMLR book on how to implement a precautionary, ecology-based approach to setting fishing catch limits using the best science available. The AOA science is shonky and has failed peer review.

2. If concern for the pristine nature of Antarctic waters was the real motivation of AOA then it would be calling for an MPA that in effect locks up all the ocean from 60 degrees south - that of course would affect the whaling and krill harvesting activities as well. Whaling in the Ross Sea itself only stopped in 1986 so it is far from the last untouched ocean as claimed. The Alliance's hyperbole is not consistent with any clear set of conservation values, its members are on an ideological crusade against fishing, nothing less.

3. By far the biggest threat to the sanctity of the Southern Ocean is the adverse effects from climate change and that is already having on the ecosystem down here. Increased absorption of heat and CO2 is changing the environment for the bioata, we are seeing an encroachment of warmer waters species further south and the impact of rising acidity of sea life will be substantial. For example silverfish, a major source of food for the larger species in these waters, have already disappeared from the Antarctic Peninsula forcing their predators further south. Changes to the Antarctic Circumpolar current will have enormous impacts on New Zealand. But of course to bring the climate-induced changes to an end requires the countries with the emissions to adjust their lifestyles - that is not within the ambit of what the Alliance appears to stand for.

4. New Zealand has been working up a realistic proposition for MPAs in the Ross Sea Region. It's realistic because it's science-based and it has a good chance of both the fishing and non-fishing members of CCAMLR agreeing to it. An AOA type proposal would never get support from the fishing nations of CAMMLR which so wouldn't have a chance of flying. In a similar vein to what rendered the International Whaling Commission a dead duck and left Japan's whale harvest well above what was proposed, extremist proposals raise the chances of an uncontrolled toothfish fishery which is the last thing we want. It's particularly dumb politics.

5. The Ross Sea Region toothfish fishery has one of the highest approval ratings that the Marine Stewardship Council, which is sponsored by WWF, has ever given. This in itself highlights the hypocrisy of the AOA proposal.

6. Regrettably, the AOA exudes more than a whiff of rich people pursuing a selective morality - similar to the calls from the West to the poor of the Amazon to stop felling "our" trees, or to the people of Asia to stop industrialising. Such piety is all too common within sectors of rich Western nations.

Gareth Morgan

Note: Gareth Morgan is currently in the Southern Ocean as part of the Our Far South project. View www.ourfarsouth.org to find out more about the project

ENDS

© Scoop Media