The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in the Southern Ocean : case study summary report

Completely surrounding Antarctica, the Southern Ocean covers approximately 15% of the world's ocean area and extends from the continent itself northwards to the seasonally shifting Antarctic Convergence or Polar Front (where the Southern Ocean's cold waters meets the warmer waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans). The primary driver for the adoption of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CAMLR Convention) in 19801 was the need for a multi-lateral response to a history of over-fishing in the Southern Ocean, in particular, for marbled rock cod (Notothenia rossii) and mackerel icefish (Champsochephalus gunnari), and the threat of increased unregulated fishing on krill (Euphausia superba) in the future. As the boundary of the CAMLR Convention area is an approximation of the Antarctic Convergence, the CAMLR Convention area roughly corresponds to the Southern Ocean. From the perspective of the international law of the sea, the CAMLR Convention area includes both de facto and de jure high seas2, as well as coastal State maritime zones (e.g. territorial seas and EEZs) around the sub-Antarctic islands south of latitude 60˚S. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), was chosen as a case study primarily because of the unusual intergovernmental governance arrangements in place, which represent collaborative joint management of resources between a considerable number of States with differing cultural characteristics, and secondly because the spatial scope of the CCAMLR Convention consists largely of 'common waters', CCAMLR presents an excellent example of how management of common areas can be successfully structured. The sole objective of the CAMLR Convention is the conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (including rational use), which in practice provides for the intergovernmental management of open and closed fisheries, establishment of protected areas and regulation of scientific study. As such, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) itself could be regarded as the application of cross-border Maritime/Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) for the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources. Cross-border MSP in CCAMLR is, inter alia, manifested where coastal State maritime zones adjacent to sub-Antarctic islands within the CAMLR Convention area require planning and management across jurisdictional boundaries, but also conceptually through a system of joint management of common waters - either de facto or de jure high seas - by multiple States and the EU, with each Member each state having its own interests and preferences in all or some (e.g. closed areas or MPAs) of these common waters. Unlike many MSP processes which are designed to develop a single plan that is then implemented, CCAMLR represents a well-developed adaptive management system that regularly and constantly revises management measures according to the ecological and human activity signals that are monitored .