MEDIA RELEASE

21 October 2019

The Governor of Tasmania, Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AC, will today open the thirty-eighth annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

The Governor will welcome some 300 marine scientists, resource managers and policy makers representing 26 international delegations, who will review current practice and consider new measures to conserve and manage marine ecosystems in the Southern Ocean. In October 2019 the Kingdom of the Netherlands became the 26th Member of the Commission.

Representatives from other Contracting Parties as well as intergovernmental, environmental and industry organisations will also participate in the meetings as official observers, adding their voices to the issues under discussion.

CCAMLR is a consensus-based organisation consisting of 26 Members (25 countries and the European Union). The Commission meeting will be chaired by Ambassador Fernando Curcio Ruigomez, Spanish Ambassador to New Zealand.

The Commission meeting considers advice from its Scientific Committee which has supported the meetings of several expert specialist groups throughout the year. The Scientific Committee will once again be chaired by Dr Mark Belchier from the United Kingdom.

“At this year’s meetings of the Scientific Committee and Commission, CCAMLR Members will continue to work collaboratively to find mutually acceptable outcomes to a range of challenges to take CCAMLR’s management of the Southern Ocean into the future,” said Dr Belchier.

2019 saw the completion of a large-scale survey for krill undertaken through the cooperation of a number of CCAMLR Members and including the participation of the krill fishing industry. Scientific research vessels and fishing vessels specifically equipped with the scientific instrumentation were involved in the survey which took place in the South Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. CCAMLR’s Subgroup on Acoustic Survey and Analysis Methods has reported that the size of the krill stock in the South Atlantic determined by the survey was 62.6 million tonnes. This is very similar to the krill stock size of 60 million tonnes determined by the last large-scale survey in 2000.

Once again this year CCAMLR reports very little evidence of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and low levels of seabird mortality from by-catch. These successes are attributed to the development of effective management measures developed by CCAMLR and the cooperation shown by CCAMLR Members in implementing them. A key proposal at this year’s meetings is to modernise the marine debris program that will allow quantification of marine debris levels across the Convention Area.

Since 1982, with the support of the Tasmanian State and Australian Commonwealth Governments, the CCAMLR Secretariat has been located in Hobart, where it maintains an office of 26 staff. The annual meetings of CCAMLR provide a valuable contribution to the intellectual and economic life of Hobart.

Media representatives are invited to attend the Governor’s opening of the Commission on 21 October at 9:00am (sharp), to be held at CCAMLR Headquarters, 181 Macquarie Street, Hobart, Australia. Please allow time for check-in and collection of passes at reception.

Media will then be excused once the meeting commences until a media briefing at 10:30am.

RSVP by 12:00pm 18 October to the Media contact (see below) so that security passes can be ready upon arrival.

The Schedule for the Thirty-Eighth Meetings of the Commission and the Scientific Committee is available on the CCAMLR website.

Please note: there will be no media conference at the close of the meeting. However, a release will be published on the CCAMLR website and sent to the CCAMLR media mailing list.

What is CCAMLR?

• The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
• Established by an international treaty in 1982
• Its objective is the conservation of Antarctic marine life while providing for rational use
• 26 Members and a further 10 countries have signed the Convention
• The Secretariat (international Headquarters) is at 181 Macquarie Street, Hobart, Australia
• Further information, including a five-minute video outlining the work of CCAMLR, is available on the CCAMLR website.

Media contact:
Dane Cavanagh
Phone: +61 3 6210 1168 (direct) or ext. 1111 (reception)
Email: dane [dot] cavanagh [at] ccamlr [dot] org