Conflict over Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean

​Conflict over Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean: An October article in Science magazine by Cassandra Brooks et al. discusses political problems in trying to use MPAs for conservation.  They say that even though the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CAMLR) have made concessions to nations such as omitting areas of high ecological value in the MPAs to avoid conflict with commercial fishery operations, Japan, South Korea, and Russia nevertheless insist that fishing be allowed in the MPAs. They state that some of the resistance may be due to the impact of other political factors such as tensions between Russia and the West over Crimea. Moreover, states recalcitrant to banning fishing in MPAs are, according to the authors, “reversing the normal burden of proof” by demanding proof that the fishing is harmful while in the past the assumption has been to disallow fishing unless data were presented to show that it would not be harmful.  The article is in the October 14 issue (Vol. 353, Issue 6309, pp. 185-187).