A potential enhanced CCAMLR ecosystem monitoring programme for Subarea 48.3

The CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Program (CEMP) has remained largely unchanged since it was established in 1985.  The current CEMP is focussed on land-based krill-eating predators that are monitored in colonies close to Member’s research stations and, with increases in the krill fishery, the ongoing recovery of baleen whales and rapid environmental change, there is an urgent need to modernise and enhance CEMP.  The Scientific Committee noted that while the current priority for CEMP is to support the implementation of the revised krill fishery management approach, CEMP also aims to monitor the wider ecosystem in the Convention Area.  Here we present a putative monitoring programme for South Georgia (Subarea 48.3) that supplements the existing CEMP data collection with at-sea surveys of krill biomass and cetaceans and broader scale surveys of sentinel species.  Such a programme could, with similar initiatives in other subareas, form part of an enhanced CEMP.