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An observer monitoring line setting. Two
observers must
be carried aboard all boats working in CCAMLR exploratory
fisheries as one of the management measures.
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It’s pretty hard to boil down a complex organisation such as
CCAMLR and its management systems into a few sentences but I’ll try my best.
So what is CCAMLR and what does it have to do with Antarctic Fishing? The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (abbreviated as CCAMLR and pronounced ‘kammelar’) came into being in 1980 as part of the Antarctic Treaty System with 15 signatories, New Zealand being a founding member. There are now 25 Signatories to the Convention and 9 other States that are party to the Convention but not Members of the Commission. This Convention established a Commission to manage the marine living resources for the Antarctic region and applies to all marine living resources except seals and whales. The Convention applies to the regions south of the Antarctic Convergence, a boundary where colder polar waters meet the more temperate waters to the north and is a very effective biological barrier to most Southern Ocean species. CCAMLR has met annually since the first meeting in 1982 in October-November at its headquarters in Hobart, Tasmania. There are a number of scientific working groups that advise the Scientific
So what is CCAMLR and what does it have to do with Antarctic Fishing? The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (abbreviated as CCAMLR and pronounced ‘kammelar’) came into being in 1980 as part of the Antarctic Treaty System with 15 signatories, New Zealand being a founding member. There are now 25 Signatories to the Convention and 9 other States that are party to the Convention but not Members of the Commission. This Convention established a Commission to manage the marine living resources for the Antarctic region and applies to all marine living resources except seals and whales. The Convention applies to the regions south of the Antarctic Convergence, a boundary where colder polar waters meet the more temperate waters to the north and is a very effective biological barrier to most Southern Ocean species. CCAMLR has met annually since the first meeting in 1982 in October-November at its headquarters in Hobart, Tasmania. There are a number of scientific working groups that advise the Scientific
Committee which in turn advises the Commission. Most
of these groups also meet annually.
Why was the Convention thought necessary? Well it was
because of concerns raised about the potential for a developing krill fishery
in the 1970’s to significantly affect the Antarctic ecosystem (which is largely
dependent on krill) and a desire to avoid the overexploitation and other
problems that had occurred in other fisheries at that time (including several
Antarctic fish species that had been overfished). The main objective of
the Convention is the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources, where
‘conservation’ is defined to include rational use (where rational use allows
the harvesting of marine species while ensuring that the principles of
conservation are maintained). The principles of rational use are detailed
out in Article 2 of the
Convention. In short - CCAMLR’s task is to balance the demands of
fisheries with the requirement to ensure the Southern Ocean ecosystem is not
negatively affected by those fisheries. CCAMLR was the first international
convention involving fisheries to include wide-ranging conservation principles
in its objectives based on an ecosystem approach.
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CCAMLR’s
headquarters in Hobart, Australia.
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What is the ecosystem approach? A management system
that focuses not only on the target species fished, but also manages dependent
and related species in the ecosystem. How does CCAMLR do this? Very
briefly, by the setting of a long-term annual yield for target species drawing
on a number of sources and revising this yield frequently as new information or
improved methodologies become available. This yield figure is based on
mathematical models which incorporate the requirement to ensure that sufficient
of the catch species are also available for predators. The calculations
are deliberately conservative to account for uncertainty in our
knowledge. Other sources of information such as research surveys (like
one San Aotea II is currently undertaking) are incorporated as well as
any other relevant fishery independent information. Fish and non-fish
by-catch are also rigorously managed – the protection of these will be the
subject of a further blog.
For those interested further the CCAMLR website provides a
much more comprehensive explanation of these topics. I hope that the
weather is kinder for our Our Far South crew as they cross the Southern ocean
from Macquarie Island to the Ross Sea than it is here today. I am hoping
to transfer aboard sometime midweek. Next blog – Seabirds and fishing –
challenges and solutions.
