A few years ago, at TEDxBariloche, I shared a conviction I have built over decades of work in marine conservation: protecting Antarctica is not an issue for the future. It is an issue for now.
For many,
Antarctica remains a distant, white, untouched territory. A world of endless
ice, penguins, and pristine landscapes. But that romantic image, however
powerful, is incomplete. Antarctica is not a frozen museum suspended outside of
time. It is a living, dynamic system increasingly under pressure from climate
change and human activity.
At the
center of that system is a small organism, almost invisible to most of us, yet
absolutely essential: Antarctic krill.
Krill is not
just a tiny crustacean. It forms the foundation of the Southern Ocean food web.
Whales, seals, penguins, seabirds, and numerous fish species depend on it. If
krill declines, the entire ecological structure built upon it begins to falter.
And when we speak of krill, we are not speaking only about biodiversity; we are
also speaking about climate stability and the health of the ocean that
regulates the global climate.
Today, krill
faces a double pressure. On one hand, climate change is altering the extent and
duration of sea ice, which is critical for its life cycle. On the other,
industrial fishing is increasingly concentrated in sensitive areas,
particularly in the Antarctic Peninsula region, where the effects of warming
are faster and more evident.
The
regulation of this activity falls to the Commission
for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), an
organization established in 1982 under the umbrella of the Antarctic Treaty
System. Its mandate was pioneering: to apply an ecosystem-based approach to
fisheries management. Not merely to manage catches, but to ensure that
exploitation does not compromise the balance of the whole system.
In theory,
it is one of the most advanced environmental governance regimes in the world.
In practice, it faces growing geopolitical tensions that complicate the
adoption of new conservation measures.
An example
of what is possible when cooperation prevails is the marine protected area in
the Ross Sea, adopted in 2016. It was a
historic milestone: at the time, the largest marine protected area on the
planet. It demonstrated that even in a complex international context, states
can reach ambitious agreements when they recognize Antarctica’s global value.
However,
other proposed marine protected areas — such as those for the Antarctic
Peninsula, East Antarctica, and the Weddell Sea — have remained blocked for
years. The Antarctic Peninsula region is,
paradoxically, both one of the most vulnerable and one of the most intensively
used by the krill fishing fleet. Penguin colonies, whale feeding grounds, and
critical habitats for multiple species converge there. Protecting it is not an
ideological stance; it is a precautionary measure grounded in scientific
evidence.
Since 1959,
Antarctica has stood as an extraordinary symbol of peaceful cooperation through
the Antarctic Treaty System. In the midst
of the Cold War, global powers chose to reserve the continent for peace and
science. That spirit is more necessary today than ever.
Protecting
krill and establishing marine protected areas does not mean closing the ocean
to all activity. It means organizing use, distributing fishing effort, creating
ecological refuge zones, and applying the precautionary principle in a context
of growing climate uncertainty. It means recognizing that Antarctica’s value
stands above short-term interests.
The current
debate is not merely technical. It is profoundly political and ethical. Are we
willing to act before deterioration becomes irreversible? Or will we wait until
the signs of collapse are unmistakable?
Antarctica
offers us something exceptional: the possibility of doing things right before
it is too late. In many other ecosystems around the planet, protection arrived
only after the damage had already been done. Here, we are still in time.
But time is
not infinite.
Science is
clear about the rapid pace of change in the Southern Ocean. Scientific
communities and civil society organizations have proposed concrete solutions.
What is lacking is sustained political will and the ability to separate
environmental cooperation from broader geopolitical disputes.
Protecting
Antarctica is not a distant issue reserved for specialists. The Southern Ocean
influences global climate regulation, carbon absorption, and the ocean
circulation that connects all the seas of the planet. What happens there
reverberates everywhere.
When we
speak of krill, we speak of whales and penguins, yes. But we also speak of
ourselves.
Antarctica
is the only continent dedicated to peace and science. Preserving that vision
requires courageous decisions. It requires recognizing that conservation is not
about stopping progress, but redefining it.
As I
emphasized in my TEDx talk, Antarctica’s protection is now. Not because it is
an effective slogan, but because ecological and political realities demand it.
History will judge us not by what we knew — for we know a great deal — but by
what we did with that knowledge.
We are still in time to make the right
decisions, to act with intelligence. And it is imperative that we do so. The
protection of Antarctica cannot wait.
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