Antarktis: Das CCAMLR-Übereinkommen (Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources) und die illegale Überfischung der südlichen Ozeane

The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) was ratified in 1982. This Convention was established in the light of a rapidly developing krill fishery in the 1970's. The objectives of the Convention are the rational use of marine living resources as well as the conservation of the resources and the marine ecosystem. Establishing the principle of the ecosystem approach has been rather progressive in fisheries conventions. From the bery beginning CCAMLR had to deal with problems of over-exploited fish stock from the unregulated fishery of pre-CCAMLR times. Antarctic cod and icefish stock were already heavily harvested or even showed signs of overfishing. Conservation measures and the closure of subareas for several years did not always lead to satisfactorily results. While some stock of icefish recovered to the extent, that a new fishery on a low level could be re-opened, other icefish stocks and especially Antarctic cod stocks have not recovered from this early depletion. A new dimension in the fishery developed in the mid 1990's, when very conservative conservation measures were introduced for the Dissostichus (toothfish), but due to the high commercial value a large illegal fishery developed rapidly in the Convention area. One additional problem of managing the longline fishery for toothfish is the by-catch and incidental mortality of sea-birds, for which special measures were established to avoid sea-bird mortality. The compliance with the measures and the elimination of the illegal fishery require strong actions of the Commission, the political decision-making body of CCAMLR. A future challange for CCAMLR could be the potentially expanding krill fishery. In the understanding of a precautionary approach, the scientific body of CCAMLR has already started to collect biological data and develop management and monitoring models for this fishery. © 1999 Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt und Hydrographie.