Saturday, October 05, 2019

Protecting the Poles

The Antarctic which is subject to a world treaty to protect its environment yet the seas around it remain vulnerable while the Arctic polar region is subject to national sovereignty. Global warming is leaving polar seas exposed to exploitation from industrial fishing. The Arctic is currently losing an area of ice larger than Scotland ever year. Russian and Norwegian trawlers are already benefiting from historically high numbers of cod in Arctic waters as the fish move north. 

Alex Rogers, a visiting professor of conservation at Oxford University said: “Some quarters are bound to try to cash in on the increase in economic value of the polar regions – and perhaps even weaken the will to take urgent climate action by selling this warming as beneficial.”

Earlier this year research found the Ross Ice Shelf – which is the biggest in the world – was melting 10 times faster than expected due to solar heating in the Antarctic ocean. In Antarctic waters, trawlers will also be able to catch fish for a larger proportion of the year. In the Antarctic, major fishers of krill are China, South Korea, Ukraine and Norway. Norway has developed new technology that means krill can be sucked straight out of the trawls into the ships so they can be left in water and don’t spoil so quickly. It is also looking to catch fish living in the twilight zone between 200m and 1,000m deep. The UK, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Ukraine, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are also fishing in Antarctic waters, according to Professor Rogers. They are mainly fishing an extremely valuable species known as toothfish, or Chilean sea bass.There are severe ecological costs. ​
A number of studies have shown species dependent on krill such as Adélie and macaroni penguins are in decline. Minke whales and pack-ice seal will lose the sea ice they depend on for foraging and reproduction. Professor Rogers said: “Researchers have found a combination of climate change and fishing for krill could lead to extinctions of penguins on some of those Subantarctic islands. If the fishing pressure was removed then those populations would still decline but they wouldn’t disappear. These types of interactions are the ones that are very difficult to understand.”
Earlier this year the EU and the Arctic Five signed an agreement banning fishing in specific areas of the Arctic until scientists worked out if it could be done sustainably. 
Professor Rogers said: “British and French sub-Antarctic territories such as the South Sandwich Islands and St Paul and Amsterdam are still not comprehensively protected. Let’s not make things worse by treating the polar oceans as a burgeoning economic resource. Instead, let’s give the life they contain the respect it deserves,” he said. 

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