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Marine Protected Areas in Antarctica again probably will not be announced

Representatives of twenty-four countries meet in New Zealand these days in Hobart, the Commission for the conservation of living marine resources (Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, CCAMLR). The two-week negotiations should cut those five years raised the issue of Antarctic creation of marine reserves. And it seems that because of Russia, members of the committee agreed again.

According to ABC news journal Russia is the last of the participating countries that efforts to establish new marine protected areas (MPAs) in the waters of the Ross Sea and East Antarctica along the blocks. It is the story, which is now going to CCAMLR, five years virtually unchanged. Twenty-four participating countries negotiate the creation of nine marine reserves in Antarctica regularly, and for various reasons approve the agreement mostly because of Russia fails. This year it could be, for example, because in that area right move Russian fishing boats.

Almost all participants CCAMLR agree that climate change will come the need to create protected areas for emphasis and necessities. "Marine protected areas in the Ross Sea are crucial to protect marine animals from protection of habitats to protecting their prey," he says, for example, Chris Johnson WWF. Without the protected area will not thrive krill, krill and no whales survive again. Worse yet it is that over the past five years, the parties were unable to agree how they should actually look like marine reserve, who should manage one, let alone declared. Which probably will not be a problem position of Russia.

According to Mark Belchiera Bella, a member of the Scientific Council of the Bureau of CCAMLR, but it is precisely Russia that associated queries to discuss the topic as a whole block. Specifically, Russia "addresses" how much of the sea should be protected and which areas would be within the sphere of protection should fall. Russia is also interested in it, who will ensure monitoring and assume control over the observance of restrictions or how it will evaluate the effectiveness of the entire "protection" of the proposed MPA. These basically reasonable inquiries but lead to a whole number of actions that weaken through various compromises agility CCAMLR, and the entire decision-making process.

Cassandra Brooks of Stanford University points out that the flood of details and the details of a conciliation process leads only to the fact that the resulting benefits for conservation will be very weak. "Generally, marine protected areas in the oceans suggest indefinitely, so they have no upper limit defining the end of their validity, "says Brooks." that's what prepares CCAMLR has already set a ceiling through negotiations between 20-50 years. This means that actually the result of not fulfilled the basic expectations of protection. "

And what is worse, a "time-limited" protection of marine areas by Brooks may in the future become a dangerous precedent.

Author: Radomír Dohnal
Source: Ekolist.cz

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