2. The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and its Management Tasks

2.1 The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources          [return to table of contents]

The exploitation of Antarctic marine living resources has been characterised by intense and sporadic pulses, in many cases resulting in the severe depletion of harvested stocks (as was the case for fur and elephant seals in the 19th century, and whales and finfish in the 20th century) (see section 1.2). In the mid-1970s, it was realised that the conservation of krill was fundamental to the maintenance of the Antarctic marine ecosystem (Figure 1) and vital to the recovery of depleted whale populations. Serious concerns were raised about effective management and sustainable utilisation of Antarctic marine living resources. These concerns were taken up by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in London in 1977. In February 1978 international negotiations began. They resulted in the signing, in Canberra in May 1980, of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). CCAMLR came into force in 1982. In common with other international agreements, CCAMLR does not impose regulations, but rather attempts to reach agreement on issues which Members of the Convention are then obliged to implement.

In contrast to other multilateral fisheries conventions, CCAMLR is concerned not only with the regulation of fishing, but also has a mandate to conserve the ecosystem. This ‘ecosystem approach’, which considers the whole Southern Ocean to be a suite of interlinked systems, is what distinguishes CCAMLR from other multilateral fisheries conventions.

The Convention applies to all marine living resources (except seals south of 60°S and whales in general) inside an area whose northern boundary is roughly delineated by the mean position of the Antarctic Polar Front and thus follows the physical and biological boundaries of the Antarctic (Figure 8). In this respect it differs from other Antarctic Treaty agreements, such as the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (CCAS) and the Protocol on Environmental Protection, whose northern boundaries are at 60°S. The Convention Area divides naturally into three sectors (Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean), which for statistical purposes are termed Statistical Areas 48, 58 and 88 respectively. Each statistical area is divided into subareas and divisions (Figure 8).

The political status of regions within the CCAMLR Convention Area is dependent on a number of considerations. Under the agreements that make up the Antarctic Treaty System, claims to Antarctic territory are not prejudiced by the Convention, but in practical terms CCAMLR has jurisdiction (i.e. the authority to implement conservation measures that are binding on its Members) over all marine areas between the Antarctic continent in the south and 60?S (i.e. the northern boundary of the Antarctic Treaty). North of 60°S, a number of states retain sovereign rights over sub-Antarctic islands (France: the Kerguelen and Crozet Islands; Norway: Bouvet Island; South Africa: the Prince Edward Islands; and Australia: Heard and McDonald Islands). Sovereign rights over South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are disputed by the UK and Argentina. Most of the areas over which CCAMLR has conservation and management mandates are high-seas areas. The United Nations Implementation Agreement on Fish Stocks (UNIA)*, which was finalised in 1995, will, in the future, regulate exploitation on the high seas. It contains, as does CCAMLR, the obligation to introduce measures to conserve species that may not be targeted by a fishery, but may be indirectly affected by it.

*  The UN Agreement for the Implementation of Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks.

CCAMLR currently has 23 Members. The CCAMLR Secretariat is based in Hobart (Tasmania, Australia). Until recently, all nations fishing in the Convention Area have been either Members of the Commission or have acceded to the Convention. Recently, however, countries such as Panama, Belize and Honduras, which are not Members of CCAMLR, have entered fisheries, in particular longline fisheries for Patagonian toothfish. This has made the task of managing fisheries in the Convention Area considerably more difficult.

In addition to CCAMLR, three other conventions regulate conservation and resource management in the Antarctic:

•  Annex II to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty: Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora (known prior to 1991 as ‘Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Flora and Fauna’);

•  The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (CCAS);

•  The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), which is not part of the Antarctic Treaty System and is not restricted to the Southern Ocean.

Only recently has it been recognised that, in addition to cetaceans, other resources such as lanternfish, Patagonian toothfish and squid, as well as flying birds such as albatrosses, cross the northern boundary of the Convention Area in significant numbers. A group that influences ecological interactions in the Southern Ocean – whales – is not dealt with by CCAMLR. Clearly, many important issues related to the management of Southern Ocean resources and systems can only be tackled in collaboration with the organisations responsible for management and conservation in areas adjacent to the CCAMLR boundaries or for species not included in the Convention. Seeking closer collaboration with these organisations will have high priority for CCAMLR in the future.

2.2 CCAMLR’s Management Tasks and the Definition of its Operational Objectives             [return to table of contents]

Article II of the Convention is central to understanding CCAMLR’s approach to the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources. It states:

1. The objective of this Convention is the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources.

2. For the purposes of this Convention, the term ‘conservation’ includes rational use.

3. Any harvesting and associated activities in the area to which this Convention applies shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of this Convention and with the following principles of conservation:

(a) prevention of decrease in the size of any harvested population to levels below those which ensure its stable recruitment. For this purpose its size should not be allowed to fall below a level close to that which ensures the greatest net annual increment;

(b) maintenance of the ecological relationships between harvested, dependent and related populations of Antarctic marine living resources and the restoration of depleted populations to the levels defined in subparagraph (a) above; and

(c) prevention of changes or minimisation of the risk of changes in the marine ecosystem which are not potentially reversible over two or three decades, taking into account the state of available knowledge of the direct and indirect impact of harvesting, the effect of the introduction of alien species, the effects of associated activities on the marine ecosystem and of the effects of environmental changes, with the aim of making possible the sustained conservation of Antarctic marine living resources.

Article II embodies two concepts that are vital to CCAMLR’s approach to management. The first is that management should follow a precautionary approach, according to which decisions taken should have a low risk of long-term adverse effects. This approach has important implications when working with uncertainty in information, for instance when the actual size of exploited stocks is not known precisely, or when new stocks are being targeted. The second concept is the ecosystem approach.

CCAMLR was a pioneer in developing what has become known as the ‘ecosystem approach’ to the regulation of fisheries. However, what is meant by such an approach?

A conventional definition of an ecosystem is:

any unit that includes all of the organisms in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined trophic structures, biotic diversity, and material cycles (i.e. exchange of materials between living and non-living parts) within the system.

An ecosystem approach does not concentrate solely on the species fished but also seeks to minimise the risk of fisheries adversely effecting ‘dependent and related species’, that is, the species with which humans compete for food. However, regulating large and complex marine ecosystems is a task for which we currently have neither sufficient knowledge nor adequate tools. Instead, CCAMLR’s approach is to regulate human activities (e.g. fishing) so that deleterious changes in the Antarctic ecosystems are avoided.

By applying the ecosystem approach, CCAMLR has chosen to deal with the difficulty of describing the full complexity of marine ecosystems by designating species considered to be most important in the food chain (so-called ‘indicator’ species) or by focusing on stocks within somewhat arbitrarily defined geographic regions or management areas. In the case of krill, CCAMLR has considered not only krill but also a subset of dependent species, including seabirds and seals, which are monitored by the CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Program (CEMP).

One of the key steps in developing workable approaches to marine living resource management is to clearly define the objectives. CCAMLR, in common with other international conventions for the regulation of fisheries, sets out general objectives that embody important principles. Where these are not scientifically meaningful (i.e. measurable), the objectives need to be interpreted so that progress towards achieving them can be assessed.

There are a number of problems in providing a precise scientific interpretation of Article II because the population level for a dependent predator that gives the ‘greatest net annual increment’ (GNAI) is largely a function of the amount of its prey that is eaten and fished by others. CCAMLR therefore has interpreted the GNAI of a dependent species as that which would occur if its prey were not fished. However, since even this is not known for most marine species, CCAMLR is using an interim method. Rather than trying to monitor the abundance of dependent species in relation to a specified level of GNAI, CCAMLR has adopted precautionary catch limits. These aim to ensure that the effect of fishing on prey abundance is limited to a level that is unlikely to have an impact on predators (which would be contrary to the requirements of Article II).

 The objectives of fisheries management should also take into account certain aspects of fishing operations, such as the time scales over which adjustments are made to fisheries regulations, i.e. whether the regulations are to be kept as consistent as possible or are varied substantially from year to year.

The next section outlines how CCAMLR is attempting to implement the Convention’s objectives through directed scientific research, modelling studies and CEMP. CCAMLR’s approach to fisheries management will need to be continually refined as more is learned about functional relationships between key species within Antarctic ecosystems.