The Bold Plan To Save This Wild Antarctic And Its Penguins, Whales And Seals

The first humans to reach Antarctica 's Weddell Sea did not come in the name of exploration. They came in 1823 to kill seals. Lots of seals. Colonies of these marine mammals had already been wiped out across much of the Southern Hemisphere. Captain James Weddell – a British sealer after whom the southerly ocean would have been named after.

Fast forward 195 years, and representatives of the U.S., along with 23 other countries and the European Union, are attending a meeting this week in Hobart, Tasmania, of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) – the body responsible for protecting the Antarctic – to decide the fate of the Weddell Sea. The choice, which will be announced on Nov. 3, is stark: Will they open it up to more exploitation in the form of fisheries and mining or they will protect it global mass extinction?

Sea ice covers 75 percent of the Weddell Sea, the coldest sea on the planet, during the brutal Antarctic winter. As well as having six species of seals, the Weddell Sea is home to 12 species of whales – including blue, humpback and killer – and numerous marine birds, such as Adelie penguins, Emperor penguins and hundreds of thousands of Antarctic petrels.

It's also hugely at risk. Climate change threatens its ecosystems and is melting the ice, making the sea much more accessible to commercial fishing, which could further this pristine wilderness.

"The Weddell Sea is like the heart of the world's ocean," said Susanne Lockhart, a research associate for the California Academy of Sciences who has studied Antarctic waters. "Cold water sinks here and drives deep-water circulation throughout the rest of the ocean basins, a crucial mechanism that helps regulate our planet's climate."

The United States wants to create the world's largest protected area – 700,000 square miles, an area bigger than Alaska – covering the bulk of the Weddell Sea. The massive Marine Protected Area, an idea suggested by Germany, would keep the Sea Weddell Sea free of fishing, even as it is more easily accessible to the climate and climate change. melting ice. It would also be mine any future attempt to mine the ocean floor gold drill for oil.

In a effort to push the motion forward, Greenpeace launched a campaign this year backing the protection of the Weddell Sea. The eco-group gathered 2 million signatures, sent to three-month scientific expedition to the sea and even more celebrities, including Javier Bardem, to see its beauty.

"Said Louisa Casson of Greenpeace's Protect Antarctica Campaign, adding" there has never been any industrial fishing in the Weddell Sea, so-and-so the most important of the year. "

Despite the sea's frigidity, scientists are discovering biological richness and diversity in the deep. "Many of the seabed communities are highly complex, made up of ancient corals and sponges that provide habitat and shelter for an incredibly rich diversity of marine life," Lockhart said.

Casson added that scientists are now estimated to be 10,000 species, many still undiscovered, in the deep Weddell Sea – "a diversity," she said, "comparable to tropical reefs."

But the Weddell Sea's coral reefs and ecosystems are already imperiled by climate change and ocean acidification. Researchers have also found plastic pollution and chemicals in Antarctic Seas.

"An escalation in commercial fishing combined with the effects of climate change could lead to a catastrophic collapse of the entire [Weddell Sea] system, "said Lockhart.

Protecting the area from fisheries would provide the ecosystem with greater resilience under climate change. If well-protected, some believe the Weddell Sea could provide a vital refuge for cold-adapted species as the planet warms.

The EU and U.K. A source at the United States' State Department said it supports the park.

While it may seem difficult to imagine 24 nations and the EU signing off on such a large protected area, it's happened in the past. The CCAMLR agreed in 2009, setting aside 36,000 square miles near the South Orkney Islands. An even bigger victory came in 2016. After years of debate, the CCAMLR established the Ross Sea protected area in Antarctica, covering just under 600,000 square miles – more than twice the size of Texas – and creating what is currently world's largest protected area on sea or land.

Casson said such reserves have broad-scale economic benefits.

"Wherever we are, we are more likely to be in a place of greater size, more diverse and more abundant marine life both inside the protected waters and with spillover benefits outside the sanctuary. This can support sustainable, well-managed fishing outside of protected areas, which can contribute to global food security, "she said, adding that MPAs also help ocean ecosystems "Avoid the worst effects of climate change"

Currently, more than 7 percent of the world's oceans are protected, and the UN has set a target of 10 percent by 2020. But some conservationists have argued a much more Half-Earth concept, first proposed by biologist E. O. Wilson, argues that we should set aside the half of the planet, both in water and on land, in order to stem mass extinction and adequately fight climate change.

Weddell Sea itself, this year Lockhart spent several hours in a submarine diving in the Antarctic Sound, adjacent to the sea.

"It is an awesome feeling leaving the stark black, white and blue of Antarctica and descending into the darkness to find an explosion of color and life on the seabed," she said.

Two hundred years ago, Antarctica was like Mars – we knew it was there. Today, all that has changed. Thousands of scientists spend every year on the continent every year. Ice breakers, fishing vessels, and science expeditions, move through the seas, and even tourist cruise ships. At the same time, our global environmental crisis is now untouched. Whether or not the Weddell Sea will remain remote and wild will be decided in the next couple of weeks.

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