Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition

🪼 #WildWednesday: Meet the Antarctic Giant Jellyfish With a bell wider than a dinner table and tentacles stretching up to 16 feet, Desmonema glaciale is one of the Southern Ocean’s most impressive residents! 📷 Image via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC) © tanipeel

🐚 Wild Wednesday: Antarctic limpet! 🔬 Nacella concinna 📏 Up to 6 cm long 📍 Antarctic rocky shores 🌿 Eats algae 🐌 Lives up to 60 years! These tiny survivors withstand freezing waters and shifting ice, but warming seas threaten their future. ❄️ 📷 iNaturalist David Cochran

You're invited: What Happens Here at #COP31 🌊❄️ 🗓️ Monday, 16 November, 19:30–20:30 (local time) 📍 COP31, Cryosphere Pavilion, Blue Zone 📸OpenPlanet / Silverback Films, John Weller 🔊 K Verell, voices: Anya Reading, Matt King

Two weeks of negotiations, countless bilaterals, and plenty of flat whites. While we leave Hobart without the outcome we hoped for, this year marked a shift toward finding common ground. Now we must turn that momentum into meaningful conservation measures in 2027.

After two weeks of negotiations, CCAMLR failed to agree on new MPAs or stronger krill fishery measures. However, conservation-focused Members demonstrated leadership, advancing discussions on the Domain 1 MPA and securing continued negotiations ahead of 2027. 📷 Matt Horspool

If Antarctica could speak, what would it ask for? 🇦🇶🌊❄️ ASOC, ICCI, Code for Good and Tasmanian artist K Verell are teaming up for What Happens Here, a new feature bringing together art, science and Indigenous wisdom to ask the question COP31 can’t ignore. 📸 John Weller

ASOC was pleased to host our CCAMLR with National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Southern Ocean Expedition in collaboration with Schmidt Ocean Institute aboard R/V Falkor (too), featuring a powerful video about the krill fishery from Act4Wildlife with WWF.

CCAMLR is meeting in Hobart at a critical moment for Antarctica. Global momentum for ocean protection is growing, climate change is reshaping Antarctic ecosystems, and krill fishing is concentrating in the very areas wildlife depends on. The world is watching. The moment is now.

Join us on 26 October at CBD COP17 for a conversation on protecting Antarctica’s Southern Ocean and advancing global biodiversity goals. 📅 Monday, 26 October 2026 | 15:00–16:00 Yerevan time 📍 VAYK Side-Event Room 3, Meridian Expo & Event Centre, Blue Zone

CCAMLR is meeting in Hobart to decide the future of Antarctica. Members must adopt the Domain 1 MPA, develop precautionary krill fishery management, and deliver a representative system Southern Ocean MPA system by 2030. asoc.org/news/ccamlr-2026-op…

We invite CCAMLR delegations and the Hobart community to a pre-screening of the new docuseries “Ages of Ice.” 🧊 📍 Stanley Burbury Lecture Theatre, University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay 📅 Sunday, 25 October 2026 🕠 5:30–8:00pm RSVP required: events.humanitix.com/ages-of…

CCAMLR begins today in Hobart and the future of Antarctica is on the agenda. Over a decade ago, CCAMLR committed to establishing a network of Southern Ocean marine protected areas. Now, Members must turn that promise into action and #ProtectAntarctica. asoc.org/news/ccamlr-2026-op…

For the next two weeks, ASOC will be on the ground at CCAMLR, bringing the conservation community’s voice into the room where decisions are made about the future of Antarctica. So, what are we advocating for? asoc.org/news/ccamlr-2026-op… 📷 Adam Maire / Ocean Image Bank

In 2016, countries made history by protecting the Ross Sea. Ten years later, no new marine protected areas have been established in the Southern Ocean. As John Kerry writes in Prospect Magazine, it’s time to keep our promise to protect Antarctica. prospectmagazine.co.uk/polit…

🐦 While many petrel species can be found in Antarctica, the Antarctic petrel is one of just three birds that breed exclusively in Antarctica, alongside emperor penguins and South Polar skuas. #WildWednesday 📷 iNaturalist (CC BY-NC) 1-2 Kate E Sutherland, 3 Katrin Schmidt

New British Antarctic Survey research found a 63% decline in occupied chinstrap penguin nests on Zavodovski Island in the sub-Antarctic South Sandwich Islands between 2011 and 2025, linked to climate change. Read more: bbc.com/news/articles/cr9dzy… 📷 Matt Horspool / Ocean Image Bank

We warmly invite CCAMLR delegations and the wider Hobart community for a special ABC Hobart pre-screening of the new docuseries “Ages of Ice” on Sunday, 25 October at the University of Tasmania! 🧊 RSVP required by 17 October: events.humanitix.com/ages-of…

🪼 Meet Antarctica’s jellyfish that doesn’t swim! #WildWednesday Haliclystus antarcticus is a tiny stalked jellyfish that lives attached to algae and rocks. It can detach and “somersault” along the seafloor before reattaching somewhere new! 📷 iNaturalist (CC BY-NC) © Pat Webster

Science should be the foundation of Antarctic protection. The proposed Antarctic Peninsula MPA draws on 140+ data layers and decades of research. Yet krill fishing continues with far more limited data. We have the science. Now CCAMLR must act on it.

❄️ On this day in 1991, the Environmental Protocol established a framework for protecting Antarctica’s environment and dependent ecosystems, guiding how activities are planned, managed, and assessed. 35 years later, it’s up to all of us to keep that commitment strong. ❄️