Marine Protected Areas

• India's exclusive economic zone encompasses 8118 km of coastline, approximately 2.02 million square kilometres. Nine states and seven union regions make up India's 372,424 square The National Portal & Helpline will provide necessary information and solutions to the Transgender community and the people engaged in the act of begging when needed.kilometre continental shelf. It faces significant challenges in maintaining its biodiversity as one of the world's 17 mega-biodiverse countries.
• India will support the establishment of two Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in Antarctica to preserve marine life and the ecosystem services it provides, according to a recent announcement from the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Indian Government.

About Marine Protected Area

• A marine protected area is a section of the ocean or the littoral where human activities are subject to tougher rules than those that apply to the nearby seas. Marine species have been given additional protection in these places by the federal, state, local, and regional governments.
• India's maritime biodiversity has been named one of the top twenty biodiversities in the world by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. As a result, strict laws have been put in place to safeguard wildlife in nine states' worth of national parks and marine water bodies as well as all of the union territories.
• There are limitations on human activities in an area of the ocean designated as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). Several MPAs allow locals to utilise the area in environmentally friendly ways. Others forbid fishing. Some refuse to permit anyone in their neighbourhood at all.

The Necessity of Creating MPAs in Antarctica

• Almost 10% of the world's water is made up of the Southern Ocean, which is home to around 10,000 distinct polar species.
• Climate change is affecting habitats that are home to a range of species, including sea ice and the protected seafloor beneath ice shelves.
• Krill are caught commercially and used to make fish meal, which is fed to farmed fish, as well as dietary supplements for people.
• Animals that consume krill are threatened by increased krill harvesting. Fish, whales, seals, penguins, and other seabirds are among them.
• According to a 2022 study that examined data from the krill fisheries spanning more than 40 years, krill fishing was most active in the areas close to the South Orkney Islands and the Western Antarctic Peninsula.

Creating the Maritime Protected Areas

• These are the several types of Maritime Protection Areas (MPAs).
• Category I includes National Parks and Sanctuaries with extensive expanses of mangroves, coral reefs, creeks, seagrass beds, algal beds, estuaries, and lagoons.
• Islands fall under Category II and have a significant role in both marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
• Sand beaches that are outside the intertidal zone but occasionally come into contact with the ocean are included in Category IIIA.
• Islands with evergreen or semi-evergreen woods are under category IIIB.

Status of MPAs in Antarctica

• Two MPAs exist in the Southern Ocean, one in the Ross Sea and the other on the southern shelf of the South Orkney Islands. Only 5% of the ocean is entirely protected by these.
• Except for scientific study, no fishing is allowed on the southern shelf of the South Orkney Islands MPA. Also prohibited are discharges and dumping from fishing vessels.
• 72% of the seas in the Ross MPA are off-limits to commercial fishing.
• Australia and the European Union have been advocating for an MPA in East Antarctica since 2012. The EU, Norway, Chile and Argentina each put up MPA proposals for the Weddell Sea and the waters surrounding the Antarctic Peninsula.
• India continued to support the designation of the Weddell Sea and East Antarctica as MPAs in 2021.
• At the Commission for the Protection of Antarctic Marine Living Resources' 41st annual conference, China and Russia reportedly opposed these measures (CCAMLR).

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