Geoscience Reference
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high concentrations around South Georgia and on the coastal shelves, where
fishing would be in direct competition with the seals and birds that breed nearby.
This
fishery, the least exploited in the world, is under mounting pressure year by
year. At present, South Korea, Japan and Norway are the main nations involved in
the krill
Norway has recently
commissioned two purpose-built trawlers and in 2010 China sent two ocean-going
vessels to the Antarctic. During their 23-day exploratory voyage, they caught
2000 tonnes of krill, a daily catch of ~100 tonnes, three times greater than
originally expected. This was a critical step in China
fishery. New krill
fishing initiatives have begun
-
c research
project called Development and Utilization of Antarctic Marine Living Resources,
established by the Secretary for the Bureau of Fisheries.
Antarctic
'
s 5-year scienti
fisheries have already been severely impacted by humans. In the late
1960s, the Soviet Union targeted marbled notothenid and ice
sh around South
Georgia. Over 400 000 tonnes were taken in the 1969
70 season followed by a
rapid decline from which the stocks have still to recover fully.
In 1982, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living
Resources (CCAMLR) was established for all Antarctic marine living resources of
the area south of the Antarctic Convergence. The novel element of CCAMLR was
that
-
fish, molluscs, crustaceans
and all other species of living organisms, including birds
'
living resources included the populations of
n
'
so it was the earliest
fishery management organisation to take the entire ecosystem into account. The
Convention also recognised the intimate relationship between the living resources
and the physical environment long before climate change became a hot topic.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is now recommending that all
fisheries.
follow the general principles of CCAMLR, i.e. by adopting a precautionary principle,
and taking into account dependent species. Scienti
c advice and long-term
monitoring data are essential to successfully implement an ecosystem approach to
sustainable management of
fisheries.
The focus of the Southern Ocean
fishery in recent years has been the
Patagonian tooth
sh which is a high value species. About 15 000 tonnes is caught
annually with a retail value of around £300million. This high value for
sh has
resulted in signi
fishing. One of the serious weaknesses
of the CCAMLR system is the inability to address illegal
cant illegal and unregulated
fishing
-
in one area it
is suggested that 90% of the catch is by pirate
fishing boats. This undermines
attempts to conserve the
fishery in the Southern Ocean.
Antarctica has considerable marine biodiversity, and probably much still to be
discovered, especially in the deep sea. Much of it is endemic and has raised
increasing interest for bioprospecting for novel organisms. The animals in
Antarctica have evolved to withstand environmental extremes, such as cold
temperatures and aridity, and may have enzymes that could be of considerable
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