A bid to establish the world’s largest protected marine environment in the Southern Ocean has failed. The international agreement was to have covered nearly 4 million square kilometres of ocean near Antarctica, with multiple-use zones designed to protect animal species and the ecosystems they rely on. Protecting the areas – which biologists say are rich in unique species – would more than double the area of the world’s oceans declared sanctuaries. But the Russian government, which holds lucrative fishing licences in the area, raised legal objections at a special meeting of the 24-member conservation body in Germany. Hopes were high that the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources would agree to the two proposals before it, which would see huge areas in East Antarctica and the nearby Ross Sea protected from various kinds of activity. The East Antarctic proposal was jointly put forward by Australia, France and the European Union and proposed protection zones in seven areas covering 1.9 million square kilometres. New Zealand and the United States put forward a protection plan for 1.6 million square kilometres of the Ross Sea, the deep bay on Antarctica’s Pacific side.
