The frigid waters around Antarctica are becoming a key battleground between industry and activists as technological advances and new demand for krill as a dietary supplement increase fishing for crustaceans that play an important role as a buffer against climate change and as food for whales advance. Penguins and other marine mammals.
Antarctic krill are crucial to the region’s food web, representing the largest biomass on the planet, but are threatened by indiscriminate fishing by companies that market them as a source of protein and omega-3 in dietary supplements.
According to studies published in the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCRVA), catches of krill increased from 104,728 tons in 2007 to 415,508 tons in 2022. Although these values are below internationally agreed conservation limits, they already have one Influence impacts on the polar ecosystem.
In 2021 and 2022, four young humpback whales were entangled by a Norwegian krill ship. In addition, dozens of seabirds collide with the metal ropes of trawlers every year, causing fatal injuries.
Currently, less than 5% of the Southern Ocean is protected, well below the CCAMLR target and not enough to meet the United Nations’ goal of conserving 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, which, combined with climate change, is melting its glaciers a problem poses an incredibly damaging threat to the Southern Ocean, often described as the world’s last natural space.