The frigid waters surrounding Antarctica are becoming a major battleground between industry and activists as technological advances and new demand for krill as a dietary supplement increasingly drive fishing for the crustacean, which serves as a vital role as a buffer against climate change and sustenance for whales, penguins and other marine mammals.
Antarctic krill is essential for the region’s food web, it constitutes the largest biomass on the planet and, however, it is being threatened by indiscriminate fishing at the hands of companies that market it as sources of protein and omega-3 in food supplements.
According to studies published in the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCRVA), krill catches increased from 104,728 tons in 2007 to 415,508 tons in 2022. These levels, although they are below the internationally agreed conservation limits , are already having an impact on the polar ecosystem.
In 2021 and 2022 four juvenile humpback whales were entangled by a Norwegian krill vessel. In addition, every year dozens of seabirds collide with the metal cables of trawlers, causing fatal injuries.
Currently, less than 5% of the Southern Ocean is protected, well below the CCAMLR target and not enough to meet the United Nations goal of preserving 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, which, together to climate change melting its glaciers, presents an incredibly damaging threat to the Southern Ocean, often described as the world’s last natural space.
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