CCAMLR

Australia and the European Union and its Member States have submitted for consideration by the Commission a draft conservation measure for the designation of an East Antarctic Marine Protected Area (EAMPA) since 2012. Since then, India, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Korea, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Uruguay have joined as co-proponents of this proposal.  The draft measure has been subject to continued improvement thanks to feedback provided by Members. This paper presents a draft conservation measure which reflects this feedback and which was introduced to CCAMLR Members at CCAMLR-38 (2019) and CCAMLR-39 (2020). No further changes have been made to the proposal for CCAMLR-40 and the purpose of this paper is to recall the improvements presented previously.

The Conservation Measure for an East Antarctic MPA, provided in Attachment A, is recommended for adoption.

This paper summarises data collected by Scheme of International Scientific Observation observers and vessels, of incidental interactions between fishing vessels, seabirds and marine mammals during fishing activities undertaken during the 2020 and 2021 seasons. The extrapolated total of 44 seabirds caught in 2020 is the lowest on record for CCAMLR fisheries. Three humpback whales were recorded as incidental mortalities in krill fisheries in 2021, the first mortality records for this species.

This paper was originally contributed as WG-FSA-2021/04 Rev. 1 which included data submitted by 23 August 2021. Upon request from WG-FSA-2021 (paragraph 6.5) it was revised with details on extrapolated warp strikes per vessel presented in Table 3 for consideration by the Scientific Committee. The paper includes additional data from krill trawl fisheries submitted by 23 September 2021.