In 2014, the Scientific Committee endorsed a proposal from South Africa that the Secretariat be tasked with developing a proposal for funding support from the Global Environment Facility to build capacity among GEF-eligible CCAMLR Member countries to strengthen their participation in CCAMLR (SC-CAMLR-XXXIII, paragraph 10.30).  This report updates progress report 1 presented to WG-EMM-15 (WG-EMM-15/15 Rev. 1 – revised text highlighted).

This paper describes the following elements associated with the proposal for a Marine Protected Area in the Ross Sea Region (CCAMLR-XXXIV-29):

1. a possible procedure for reporting on research and monitoring activities within the proposed Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area (RSRMPA);
2. how the Commission might review the extent to which the objectives of the RSRMPA are still relevant and are being achieved; and
3. the period of designation for the RSRMPA.

Loss of sea-ice, ice shelves and retreat of coastal glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula in the last few years has exposed new open water, allowing large blooms of phytoplankton to flourish in the newly exposed coastal areas. This new productivity has important consequences as the phytoplankton die and sink to the sea-bed where the carbon is sequestered for thousands of years. This carbon sink acts as a negative feedback to climate change, with an estimated 2.9 million tonnes of carbon drawdown per year on the West Antarctic continental shelf.

Carbon accumulation differs significantly between regions based on specimens collected from the continental shelves of South Georgia, the South Orkney Islands and Bellingshausen, Amundsen and Weddell Seas. The South Orkney Islands are the most productive region per km² but, at only 4x10⁴ km², the greatest overall gains are for the larger continental shelves.

The program Integrating Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics, which is a partner program of IMBER and SCAR, will be holding a conference on assessing status and trends of habitats, key species and ecosystems in the Southern Ocean in April 2018.  This background paper is an invitation to Members of the SC-CAMLR to participate in working groups on four themes that will be of benefit to SC-CAMLR: (1) Assessments of status and trends in habitats, species and ecosystems, and the causes of change (attribution); (2) Responses of species to changing habitats, including ocean acidification, sea ice and temperature; (3) Modelling and analytical methods to assess status and trends; and (4) Implementation of observing systems to estimate dynamics and change.  These themes aim to facilitate contributions of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean marine science community to: the next assessment by the IPCC and recent initiatives to assess status and trends in global ocean ecosystems; the Southern Ocean Observing System; the SCAR Report on Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment; CEP; SC-CAMLR; and IWC-SC.