“We are stripping the life away from the blue planet,” said oceanographer, explorer, and author, Sylvia A. Earle. She keynoted a recent event on marine protected areas in Antarctica and the high seas co-hosted by the Wilson Center and The Pew Charitable Trusts with support from the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. “Do we want a planet like Mars?” she said. “Most people would say, ‘I don’t think so. I like to breathe. I like water that falls magically out of the sky. I like having a living planet.’”

But until about 3 billion years ago, Earle said, our planet did not have much oxygen in its atmosphere, because photosynthesis had not yet started to capture carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere. There was water and life on Earth, but it wasn’t yet suitable for us. “The way we’re going now, we’re trending back toward that time,” Earle said, “by eliminating life, by changing the chemistry, changing the temperature of Earth by our own doing.”

Protecting the Seas

Only about 3 percent of the seas are proactively being protected, said Earle. We aspire to 10 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030, she said. “Should we not be looking at all of it with respect and care, doing everything in our power to embrace as much of it as we possibly can with full protection?” she said.

Because not enough was being done to protect the ocean, the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) was established in 1982, said Andrea Kavanagh, Director of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Conservation at The Pew Charitable Trusts. The convention’s main mission is to conserve Antarctic marine life. In 2002, member countries recognized the importance of marine protected areas in rebuilding oceans, she said. “They decided then they would commit to creating a representative network of marine protected areas all around the Southern Ocean,” she said.

Not protecting the Antarctic could mean cutting off the nutrient supply line that three-quarters of the world’s marine life relies on for nutrients, said Kavanagh. “The matter of the issue here is quite simply the protection of our planet, and the opportunity to leave a habitable world for future generations,” said His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco in a video aired during the event.

Efforts to Create Marine Sanctuaries

The East Antarctic Area proposal created by the European Union and Australia in 2010, said Ambassador Katrina Cooper, Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C., aims to protect key ecosystem processes and habitats and provide scientific reference areas for monitoring ecosystem change and impacts of fishing. “What we are hoping to achieve with that marine protected area is to conserve distinctive examples of biodiversity in the Southern Ocean,” she said.

Markus Brill, Minister Counselor of Food and Agriculture at the German Embassy, described Germany’s proposal for a marine protected area covering the Weddell Sea area. The proposal defines three zones: general protection zones that focus on protecting key species and top predators, zones that provide enhanced protection of marine ecosystems and establish scientific reference areas, and fisheries research zones designed to help understand the ecosystem effects of fishing.

Role of Krill

Chile’s and Argentina’s Antarctic Peninsula proposal is set to cover 450,000 km² of the Antarctic sea around the peninsula and would set out to protect the krill, a key species. “Pretty much every species depends on arctic krill in some way,” said Kavanagh. “And krill are a very important carbon sink.” An estimated 23 million tons of carbon locked away every year by krill, she said. “And that’s the equivalent of carbon produced by 35 million cars.” 

Talk of slow deliberations left the keynote speaker wanting speedier action. Given that climate scientists say we have 10 years or less to stabilize planetary processes that are currently in real trouble, said Earle, isn’t there some way that we can accelerate and expand beyond what is already hard-won and what is being proposed?