The 44th annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) wrapped up in Hobart with a familiar sense of frustration. Despite two weeks of negotiations, the body failed to advance long-delayed goals to protect the Southern Ocean, leaving conservationists and scientists questioning the pace of progress. Yet, beneath the surface of this stalemate, a growing coalition of member nations is refusing to back down from their commitment to safeguarding Antarctica’s fragile ecosystems.
Claire Christian, Executive Director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), struck a defiant tone. “This year, conservation-minded countries showed that the future of Antarctica cannot be dictated by those who put fishing before protection,” she said. “Key proponents refused to compromise on science, stood united in defense of marine life, and sent a clear signal that CCAMLR’s founding purpose of conservation must come first.”
This unity among Chile, Argentina, the European Union and its member states, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, and others successfully resisted attempts to expand krill fishing in predator-rich areas without safeguards for penguins, seals, and whales. The standoff highlights a fundamental tension within CCAMLR: balancing industrial fishing interests with the urgent need to protect one of the planet’s last wildernesses.
At the heart of the meeting were two intertwined issues: the proposed marine protected area (MPA) for the Antarctic Peninsula and the management of the krill fishery that overlaps much of the same waters. For years, members have worked to align these efforts, recognizing that protecting habitat and managing harvests must go hand in hand. But this year, a small but persistent bloc pushed to decouple the discussions, attempting to separate fisheries expansion from marine protection.
Emily Grilly, Ocean Conservation Manager at WWF-Australia, cut to the heart of the matter. “You can’t claim to manage krill sustainably while ignoring the penguins, whales, and seals that depend on it,” she said. “The science is clear: healthy predator populations rely on healthy krill populations. Preserving this delicate ecosystem balance requires both robust, precautionary management and designation of protected areas.”
WWF has now called for a moratorium on Antarctic krill fishing to protect krill and the wildlife that rely on them after the failed agreement. The organization notes that for the first time ever, the krill fishery was forced to close early in 2025 after its entire 620,000t annual quota was rapidly caught. The early closure was a consequence of a critical protection measure – which spatially distributed krill catch – being allowed to lapse in 2024.
The proposed Antarctic Peninsula MPA, led by Chile and Argentina and supported by more than 150 scientific studies, remains one of four protection proposals awaiting adoption. Together with existing protections, these would safeguard 26% of the Southern Ocean, nearly 3% of the global ocean. While the meeting ended without adoption, observers said it marked a turning point. The growing alignment among conservation-oriented members shows increasing global resolve to bring CCAMLR back in step with the world’s ocean protection commitments, in line with the recently ratified High Seas Treaty and the global target to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030.
CCAMLR also missed a key opportunity to protect vulnerable seafloor habitats, with two members rejecting the designation of a new Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem (VME) despite clear video evidence of fragile bottom-dwelling species. Similar evidence has been used in the past to approve 11 other sites, leaving observers questioning the inconsistency.
Moreover, evidence of the dramatic impacts of climate change on the Antarctic environment was discussed but failed to result in significant action. Although CCAMLR had previously agreed to include climate change in all areas of its work, it has been slow to adopt meaningful protections for threatened Antarctic ecosystems.
“Antarctica is warming faster than almost anywhere else on Earth, yet CCAMLR continues to treat climate change as an afterthought,” said Eunhee Kim, Executive Director of the Climate Ocean Research Institute. “Acting on the alarming evidence of Antarctic climate change is essential to ensuring the resilience of Antarctic ecosystems.”
New rules on transshipment, the practice of transferring of people, materials, or fisheries catches between vessels at sea, were agreed. CCAMLR members agreed to require all vessels to be publicly listed, a long-awaited step toward transparency to bring CCAMLR in line with global best practices.
This meeting underscores a broader challenge: the pace of scientific discovery and ecological decline is outstripping the pace of international governance. The growing coalition of conservation-minded members is sending a clear message that the status quo is no longer acceptable. The question now is whether CCAMLR can adapt quickly enough to meet the moment—or whether the Southern Ocean