(Corrects authorship of statements in penultimate paragraph)
Sydney (Australia), 23 Feb. The Australian government on Thursday announced a plan to expand the protected areas of Macquarie Island Marine Park, located in sub-Antarctic waters and home to penguins and seals, to 388,000 square kilometres, more than Germany.
Macquarie Island, located between the southern island of Tasmania and the Antarctic Peninsula of Anderson, and its waters are essential for feeding millions of seabirds, such as petrels and albatrosses, and breeding and breeding seals, elephants and fur seals, as well as various species of penguins.
This small territory, declared a marine natural park in 1999, has a huge sea that bathes the region and which will see the protected areas tripled thanks to this proposal, said Australian Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek.
“The proposal includes a new, larger High Protection Zone, larger than the area of Germany, an important contribution to our commitment to protect 30% of our land and 30% of our oceans by 2030,” said Plibersek in a statement.
The plan also aims to support the sustainable, small-scale fishing of toothfish, also known as toothfish or toothfish.
For its part, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) applauded the proposal which, as they point out, will protect endangered marine species, such as whales, and help fight the climate crisis, after a temperature record 17 degrees on this island near the frozen continent.
“This announcement is an important contribution to marine conservation in the Southern Hemisphere, a region where the dramatic impact of the climate crisis can threaten unique wildlife,” said Emily Grilly, conservation manager at Antarctica affiliated with WWF Australia.
However, Australia’s seafood industry executive director Veronica Papacosta noted in statements to public broadcaster ABC that the proposal leaves out the fishing industry to serve environmental interests.
In the waters of Macquarie Island, two companies fish for the precious toothfish and are governed, according to the statements of the Australian minister to ABC, by “the best world standards and the reduction of accidental fishing”, with which they have proven that ” sustainable fishing is compatible with conservation.
If the protection plan, which covers the entire exclusive economic zone of Macquarie Island, is put in place, Australia would see more than 48% of its maritime territory protected and exceed one of its environmental commitments, according to the statement. ministerial. ECE
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