Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps are being taken at international level to advocate for the protection of the Antarctic.

The United Kingdom is a leading voice in the Antarctic Treaty System. The UK wants to ensure that the Antarctic Treaty continues to be a respected and influential agreement. We play a highly active role in the annual meetings of the Consultative Parties, and in meetings of the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) and Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). The UK has consistently lobbied for greater environmental protection of Antarctica and this year has seen UK led initiatives relating to tourism management, terrestrial protected areas and heritage conservation agreed by Treaty Parties. We will continue to press for the full implementation of the Treaty's Environmental Protocol which prohibits commercial mining and protects vulnerable areas, animals and plants.

Within CCAMLR the UK is committed to establishing a representative network of marine protected areas around Antarctica. The UK led the proposal for the South Orkney Islands Southern Shelf Marine Protected Area (MPA), which was the first MPA agreed by CCAMLR in 2009. The UK also successfully led a proposal to protect marine areas newly exposed by ice shelf retreat or collapse, and after the massive iceberg broke off from the Larsen Ice Shelf last year, the UK secured protective measures for the area of sea exposed by the ice. The UK also strongly supported the designation of the Ross Sea region MPA, agreed in 2016 and is a co-proponent of the proposals to establish MPAs in the Weddell Sea and East Antarctica, which are under consideration at the 37th CCAMLR meeting in October 2018.