Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will respond to Early Day Motion 804, on Antarctic Ocean Sanctuary.

​The UK is an active participant in both the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and the Committee for Environmental Protection, both integral parts of the Antarctic Treaty System. The UK led the proposal to establish a Marine Protected Area around the South Orkney Islands Southern Shelf which was agreed in 2009; and strongly supported the designation of the Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area in 2016. The UK is a co-proponent of the proposal to establish a Marine Protected Area in the Weddell Sea and will be advocating strongly for its adoption at the 37^th CCAMLR meeting in October 2018.