COP16, the much-anticipated follow-up talks to the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreement, which aims to reverse an alarming loss of nature on land and sea, opens in Cali, Colombia.
Sometimes described as the “Paris Agreement for nature”, this legal framework agreed under the Chinese Presidency of the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity’s 15th COP, calls on the international community to reverse the biodiversity crisis, including by protecting 30 percent of the world’s land and 30 percent of its marine areas by 2030.
But, two years later, the world remains alarmingly off track. In the marine realm, for example, only 8.35 percent of the world’s ocean is currently protected. It is inconceivable that the 30X30 commitment will be met without a rapid expansion of protections in the high seas and Southern Ocean, which encompass nearly two-thirds of the global ocean.
Now time is running out.
A new report from the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) highlights how record heat waves and sea ice loss, driven by climate change, are reshaping the frozen continent and the waters surrounding it.
Such impacts are particularly alarming because research has shown that the Southern Ocean helps to stabilize the global climate by circulating cold water and nutrients to higher latitudes in a process known as the carbon pump. Its krill populations alone—with schools large enough to be seen from space—may store over 20 million tons of carbon annually, equivalent to taking 35 million cars off the road.
The problems in the Southern Ocean have been compounded in recent years by a rise in tourism, plastic pollution, and industrial-scale fishing in a place that not long ago was largely inaccessible to human activity.
Fortunately, study after study have shown that marine protected areas (MPAs) are one of the best ways for vulnerable ecosystems to build resilience as they adapt to new and increasing ecological pressures, and continue to provide the ecosystemic services humanity needs.
Additionally, talks over the fate of proposals to create four new MPAs in the Southern Ocean are now entering their final days at the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Hobart, Australia. CCAMLR, established in 1982, is the only representative body with the mandate to designate these MPAs by consensus.
The Commission already demonstrated global leadership in science-based marine resource management and committed to create a representative network of MPAs in the Southern Ocean in 2009. It took time, but despite political differences, in 2016, the body created the world’s largest marine protected area in the Ross Sea, which now serves as a vital refuge for krill, fish, whales, and birds.
The Ross Sea Region MPA also demonstrated a willingness by the international community to put aside its differences for the sake of conservation and scientific discovery in the world’s last wilderness. Moreover, leaders at the most recent Group of 20 meeting, called on all nations with a stake in Antarctica to complete the approval process for a robust system of MPAs in the region.
Now, the commission’s members are considering four scientifically robust MPAs: Weddell Sea Phase 1 MPA, East Antarctic MPA, Domain 1 (Antarctic Peninsula) MPA, and Weddell Sea Phase 2 MPA. If all four MPA proposals are agreed, with existing protections, it will protect 26 percent of the Southern Ocean and nearly 3 percent of the global ocean.
This would be the largest act of ocean conservation in history and make a major contribution toward achieving 30×30.
The coalition of champions Antarctica2030, which we co-chair, is fully aligned with this objective, supporting every effort to ensure the protection of these critical marine areas and to help meet the global 30×30 target.
It hasn’t been easy, but time and again nations have shown we can find solutions that support our mutual political and environmental interests, even when we have other, significant differences.
Now CCAMLR nations, including China, have a rare opportunity to meet their international obligations and take a leadership role, potentially making the Southern Ocean the first large ecosystem in the world where the 30×30 objective is attained.
Geneviève Pons is the co-chair of Antarctica2030 and CEO of Europe Jacques Delors; Pascal Lamy is the co-chair of Antarctica2030 and Vice-President of the Paris Peace Forum.
