CCAMLR Hobart Annual Meeting Ends Two-Week Talks Without Agreement; Neither Antarctic Peninsula MPA nor Precautionary Krill Catch Limits Adopted

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) completed its two-week annual meeting in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, without the consensus needed to establish new marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean or to adopt additional precautionary safeguards for managing the Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) fishery. The outcome of the meeting was made public on Monday, November 2, 2026.

Despite constructive positions taken by several delegations aimed at advancing agreement in line with the organization's core conservation principles, the negotiations ultimately failed to adopt binding conservation measures for species and habitats within the Convention Area.

One of the central topics of the meeting was the "Domain 1" marine protected area proposal (D1 MPA) covering the Antarctic Peninsula. The proposal did not obtain the unanimous consent required for formal approval, but a substantial number of member states agreed to launch an intersessional technical and diplomatic process to carry forward the momentum generated during the Hobart meeting.

Claire Christian, Executive Director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), noted that while dialogue made progress, it was regrettable that no concrete outcomes were achieved to strengthen ecosystem and species protection under the dual pressures of commercial fishing operations and global environmental change.

Rodolfo Werner, co-founder and senior advisor of the Antarctic Agenda, emphasized that Argentina and Chile demonstrated joint leadership in advancing the "Domain 1" proposal, an initiative firmly supported by Brazil and Uruguay. He said that although final consensus was not reached, the progress made during the meeting laid a more solid foundation for finalizing the designation of this protected area in the near future.

CCAMLR's formal commitment to establishing a representative network of marine protected areas across the Southern Ocean dates back to 2009. Seventeen years after that mandate, the Commission has established only 2 protected areas, with 5 other proposals still under consideration, including a new proposal for East Antarctica submitted by China during this meeting. In addition, a full decade has passed since the Commission last adopted a marine protected area.

Nicolas Kirkham, who leads the Antarctic marine protection initiative at the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project, noted that CCAMLR's 27 members left the negotiating table for the tenth consecutive year without establishing a protection framework for the western Antarctic Peninsula. He said that despite extraordinary negotiating efforts led primarily by Chile and Argentina, the plenary once again failed to fulfill its historic commitment to protect this region of global ecological importance.

Recurring disagreements have intensified scrutiny of the organization's institutional capacity to translate Scientific Committee recommendations into actionable ocean governance measures.

Ahead of the upcoming first Conference of the Parties to the High Seas Treaty (BBNJ Agreement), Emily Grilly, Ocean Conservation Manager at WWF-Australia, stressed that CCAMLR must inject greater speed and ambition into its decision-making processes to align with global marine biodiversity conservation commitments.