Saving the Antarctic Ocean
Expanding marine protected areas at the ends of the Earth is a key part of combating climate change and saving ourselves.
It had been a long time since I had cried in public. But on October 28, 2016, I was not the only one openly weeping in a stone fortress in the center of Hobart, Tasmania, as I witnessed 24 Nations and the European Union establish the world’s largest marine protected area in the Ross Sea, Antarctica.
Perhaps I should back up a few paces to explain – the effort to protect the Ross Sea had consumed my life for the previous dozen years. It started for me in 2004 when I read a paper by Antarctic ecologist David Ainley, who outlined the story of the Ross Sea, identifying it as the last large intact marine ecosystem left on Earth. This idea – that we had but one pristine place left in the entire ocean – got under my skin. It was an itch that I couldn’t scratch, and I eventually called David and arranged a meeting. We met some weeks later and committed to work together to build a campaign for a marine protected area in the Ross Sea. And though we shook hands at the end of that first meeting, we made the pact with our eyes.
“Across the globe, the ocean is in dire need of protection.”
I’ll fast-forward through the years of single-minded pursuit, working alone in our respective garages, sometimes for days at a time with no sleep, as we slowly built momentum. Suffice to say that what followed was the birth of a community, as we entrained the attention and support of scientists, policymakers, organizations and individuals across the globe. We joined forces with New Zealand filmmaker Peter Young, and as a trio, The Last Ocean Project began to fully take shape. Soon the project took on a life of it’s own. There are too many people to mention, too many breaks, selfless acts of generosity, and incredible collaborations. This pursuit brought me to the Ross Sea four times. It brought me my wife, and eventually my daughter, whom we named after a penguin, and my son, whom we named after the Ross Sea itself. As we fought to bring the Ross Sea into the public view, teams of brilliant and tireless people fought concurrent battles in boardrooms and scientific journals all over the world. Maybe David started the train moving.
Maybe the train started moving of its own accord. Who knows? Who cares? But the train was moving. We did our best to hold on and stoke the engines. But then it stalled on the tracks.
For years, the vision of protecting the last pristine place seemed more and more unlikely. I fell, at times, into deep depression. And as my faith in the outcome waned, so did my faith in humanity. I lived this pursuit, and on several specific occasions, it nearly killed me.
Everything changed on that night in 2016 in the stone fortress that houses the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) – the international government body that manages the Southern Ocean. Led by delegates from the US and New Zealand – who for the previous 5 years had traveled the world negotiating, deliberating, and building political consensus among CCAMLR members – the proposal for the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area was adopted. In that moment, in protecting the most pristine marine ecosystem left on Earth, CCAMLR
members redefined what is possible in international collaboration. They created a blueprint for conservation – not just for the protection of the Southern Ocean, but for our global ocean, the source of life on Earth. It was an astounding achievement. This was a gift to all of humanity, present and future. I wish all of you reading this could have been here when the room erupted. Nations were literally hugging other nations. I can guarantee that it would have made you cry.
But as profound as this moment was, it was not the end of the story. It was, in fact, the beginning, because what we need to accomplish is so much larger. Across the globe, the ocean is in dire need of protection.
Thomas Henry Huxley, one of the great biologists of the 19th century, gave the keynote presentation at the first Fishery Congress in 1883. As part of his address, he was asked to comment on the rising question of whether overfishing ocean stocks was possible. His assessment was this:
“…At the great cod-fishery of the Lofoden Islands, the fish approach the shore in the form of what the natives call ‘ cod mountains’– vast shoals of densely-packed fish, 120 to 180 feet in vertical thickness. The cod are so close together that Professor Sars tells us “the fishermen, who use lines, can notice how the weight, before it reaches the bottom, is constantly knocking against the fish.” And these shoals keep coming in one after another for two months, all along the coast…
…I believe, then, that the cod fishery, the herring fishery, the pilchard fishery, the mackerel fishery, and probably all the great sea fisheries, are inexhaustible; that is to say, that nothing we do seriously affects the number of the fish. And any attempt to regulate these fisheries seems consequently, from the nature of the case, to be useless.”
Huxley’s belief, in some modified form at least, still seems to pervade our collective consciousness. But this perception is false. Huxley also said, “The great tragedy of science [is] the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact,” and the facts in this case are truly ugly.
In reality, fisheries were already exhausting populations of oceanic fish when
“Add to overfishing the pressures of warming seas, acidification, sedimentation, and pollution, and you have the recipe for global disaster.”
Huxley made his address. According to the FAO, by 2008, 90% of all global fisheries were fully exploited, overexploited or collapsed. Less than 10% of all global fisheries had any excess capacity. Overall global fish-landings peaked in the 1980s and have been in a slow decline ever since, despite 30 years of new technology and vastly more effort. Add to this the pressures of warming seas, acidification, sedimentation, and pollution, and you have the recipe for global disaster. And make no mistake. This is not a story about fish, or even about the incredible creatures that inhabit our oceans. This is a story about a mortal threat to humanity. And we are at a real crossroads.
As recent reports from the IPCC and IPBEC underscore, we are reaching the point of no return in respect to climate change, and at the same time facing a fourth great extinction. If we are to change our course, we must introduce sweeping changes within the next decade. We must protect ourselves by protecting our environment. And when it comes to the oceans, nothing works better than a marine protected area. An MPA with the highest level of protection, a no-take MPA, can expect a dramatic and rapid rebound from previous impacts. Several recent studies hammer this point home. Assessing independent data from 124 no-take MPAS, one set of researchers recorded average increases of 446% in biomass, 166% in the density of organisms, 28%
“We must protect ourselves by protecting our environment. And when it comes to the oceans, nothing works better than a marine protected area.”
in the size of individual organisms, and 21% in species diversity. MPAS have also been shown to buffer the effects of climate change.
We are just beginning to understand the importance of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean to our global ocean, our global environment. Despite the appearance of being a desert of ice, the waters around Antarctica are home to the most prolific ecosystems on Earth, and the most prolific species is the shrimp-like Antarctic Krill, which anchors the food chain. Every summer, the great whales of the Southern Ocean migrate to Antarctic waters to feast on this bounty, and new studies show that they bring critical nutrients back to more northern waters when they return in the fall, enriching the waters along their migration. The Southern Ocean absorbs a third of the carbon dioxide that we release into the atmosphere, buffering the effects of climate change. How many more complex interactions connect the fate of Antarctica to our own fate? And as these intricate systems struggle to adapt to a fast-changing climate, we have to ask ourselves if we can accept the status quo, or whether we must act on their behalf.
In 2002, CCAMLR committed to the creation of a network of MPAS to protect the core of the Southern Ocean. And despite the success of the Ross Sea, there is much more work to be done. Three more massive MPA proposals – in East Antarctica, the Weddell Sea, and the Antarctic Peninsula – are under discussion at CCAMLR. Chile and Argentina have spearheaded the Peninsula proposal. CCAMLR failed to act in 2019. As we stand by, ocean health continues to decline precipitously. We need to take a stand. We need to open the door to a new age of enlightenment, a new global ocean culture. I believe the Antarctic holds the key.
Please join us in the fight for Antarctica and other critical regions of our world’s oceans at www.sealegacy.com.
“Despite the appearance of being a desert of ice, the waters around Antarctica are home to the most prolific ecosystems on Earth.”