Antarctica

An inspirational story of management success in the name of peace and science.

Quinn DiTomasso

Introduction

My environmental governance case study is about the beautiful far away land of Antarctica.

I’m going to be analyzing, from a global scale perspective, has Antartica been properly managed? And what similar pathways can we follow in future management?

About Antarctica

When people think of Antarctica, they think of a desolate, cold, far away land that is lifeless and out of reach.

This is partially true; it is extremely isolated. Even at its closest point, it is still over 600 miles away from anything else. It is the coldest place on Earth with lots of extremes.

98% of its mass is completely ice covered, making it very vulnerable and at risk to climate change. There is also multiyear ice, extreme negative temperatures, and dangerous weather conditions from highly powerful winds driven by the Antarctic circumpolar current where huge waves are forced through the very narrow Drake Passage. Weather is unpredictable and can change in an instant. Interestingly though, it's also the driest continent on Earth. Antarctica doesn’t get much precipitation in the form of snow or rain at all. Average precipitation is measured at only about 2-8 inches per year versus here in Boulder, Colorado a place that some may consider to be quite dry, there is an average of 20 inches of per year. The frigid cold temperatures in combination with the dryness create conditions of excellent preservation and low rates of decomposition.

Harsh and far away? Yes, but Antartica is not as barren and lifeless as many may assume. Beneath the icy waters there is a bounty of rare and beautiful life that is found nowhere else on the planet, from minke and orca whales, penguins, and weddell seals, toothfish, krill, and snow petrels. (Weller, 2021.)

Discovering Antartica: Journey into the Unknown

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The Harsh Reality:

In 1773, Captain Cook and his crew traversed the harsh Antarctic waters looking for a new continent with resource bounty. As it is recorded in his personal journal, they instead found “a country doomed by nature never once to feel the warmth of sun.” Later explorers had similar experiences, writing “Great God! This is an awful place.” - Robert F. Scott, 1912.

Race to the Bottom of the Earth:

But after its discovery, there was a worldwide quest for the south pole. Other countries raced to the shores of the icy continent, risking the lives of many people just to stick their flags on the land and stake their claim over Antarctica. Even though it's a harsh frozen wasteland, Antarctica was truly the last land without sovereignty claims. This made many countries fight for power and ownership of the continent, despite its near uninhabitable conditions.

For Science or for War?

But for many of these brave explorers, it was also very much about science and discovery. Although the land was desolate, the water was rich in life and resources. With the mindset that Antartica was an unclaimed, open access land of endless and bountiful resources, sealing and whaling was intense and many species were driven to near extinction.

But this all changed with adoption of the Antarctic Treaty. After World War II, the world started to realize that Antartica was at risk for militarization. American soldiers trained in Antarctica in attempts to simulate the freezing conditions they would have to face during war in Russia. Antarctica was still a place that countries want to claim and occupy, but for new reasons. The real concern grew from southern hemisphere countries that Russia and the United States were threatening national security by potentially using Antarctica as a platform for nuclear war. That’s where the Antarctic Treaty came in.

The Antarctic Treaty:

The Antarctic Treaty states that Antarctica is to be set aside for peaceful purposes only. No military activity can take place, such as the establishment of military bases, construction of fortifications, or testing of any weapons. The goal of the Antarctic Treaty is to promote international cooperation and the freedom of scientific investigation, all sovereignty claims were suspended. (The Antarctic Treaty, 1959.)

For the Love of Science:

But why did countries sign the Antarctic Treaty? Considering that countries typically only sign treaties that are in their national interests, countries still signed the Antarctic Treaty for the good of global humanity, peace, and science. The harsh icy lands of Antarctica were to be put aside exclusively for peaceful purposes, like science and exploration. This is important for maintaining international peace and security because when countries can work together towards common interests, distrust can be overcome, and conflicts can be avoided. In the case of the Ross Sea marine protected area, I think this was another example of a great conservation success. Similar to the Antarctic Treaty, the adoption of the Ross Sea MPA is a story of countries coming together and putting differences aside for the sake of science, conservation, and humanity. To establish this MPA it took the work of scientists, conservationists, and citizens around the globe. Some trade-offs involved is the amount of time and effort that this project required. So many actors were playing different crucial roles at different levels. It took over a decade to get this MPA adopted and lots of blood, sweat, and tears. The decision also had to be unanimous, a tricky feat when working with countries around the world who all have different interests. Thanks to the Ross Sea MPA and the Antarctic Treaty, Antarctica will always be a global commons dedicated to peace and science indefinitely. (Berkman, 2009.) In this case, crisis lead to breakthrough.

Dedication in the Face of Death: Ernest Shackleton

Die-hard scientists risked their lives in Antarctica in the name of discovery because they were driven and motivated by their true passion and dedication to science. Ernest Shackleton and his crew have a famous story, he wanted to be the first man to cross the entire continent of Antarctica, entering on through the Weddell Sea, trekking across the entire icy landmass, and exiting through the Ross Sea on the other side. This was a perilous journey that took a turn for the worst when their ship got stuck in the ice, drifting aimlessly and leaving them stranded for a long and cold 22 months. Shockingly still, the entire crew survived and even with very little hope, they still were conducting science every day. This communal love and drive for science is shared by scientists from all nations and has thus created amazing international relationships. Scientists from different countries came to Antarctica and started working side by side, despite any diplomatic tensions. Science fostered freedom, and in the end, countries realized that all claims should be disregarded for the sake of science, sharing, and working together to make discoveries. Antartica is the only place in the world like this, a continent dedicated to peace, cooperation, and science.

Ernest Shackleton before and after his expedition.

Modern Problem: Antarctic Fisheries

Today, the industrial fishing industry is one that affects us all on a global scale. (Pauly, 2019.) Specifically in Antarctica, commercial fisheries for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides and Dissostichus mawsoni) are the most problematic. The problem lies with illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing which leads to overexploitation. Antarctic krill is harvested in mass quantities for creating the common supplement fish oil. Toothfish is a benthic long living fish that is branded in supermarkets, restaurants, and grocery stores worldwide as “Chilean Seabass” and it is a popular item of consumption. The overexploitation of these fisheries threatens Antarctica’s biodiversity and stability. (Brooks et al, 2019.)

Antarctic krill (*Euphausia superba)* and Antarctic toothfish (*Dissostichus mawsoni*)

Establishing the Ross Sea MPA: Stories from John B. Weller

In order to protect these fragile Antarctic resources, a marine protected area had to be put in place. The story of the Ross Sea marine protected area is one that involved the culmination of efforts from many actors who came together and never gave up. There were steps to get the Ross Sea MPA established, first many different kinds of scientists who specialize in different fields had to assemble to talk together in order to form a collective understanding that encompasses the whole issue. These scientists then had to create a scientist’s consensus paper and send it around to reach as many individuals as possible and get signatures from those who agree that the Ross Sea should have a marine protected area, educating people and finding supporters. While scientists continue publishing research on different aspects of the system, media, film making, and photography was used as a powerful tool to bring the story to the public eye. The Last Ocean project was created, and many highly respected and well-established people got involved, acting as the foundation fortifying the validity the story. By telling the stories of the Ross Sea and with help from lots of actors, the sense of immense jaw dropping beauty and also serious urgency of this case was brought to the public. Articles started being published all over the world in many different languages, through these publications alone almost 1 billion people were reached. The Last Ocean film won awards and the powerful media truly brought the audience into the intimate setting of the story. A book was written and presented to senators and presidents of different nations, talks were given at many levels from elementary school classes to delegates of CCAMLR, developing institutional partners and gathering a global group of NGOs involved. In summation, what they did was bring this obscure place at the bottom of the world to the mainstream where people could witness the true beauty and grasp the severe importance of protecting this last truly intact and pristine marine environment before it's too late. Without this, it may have been something no one would ever had known about because seeing is believing.

Images of the Ross Sea, a photographer amongst emperor penguins, a protestor in Berlin.

The Influence of Leadership:

Social media was a powerful outlet to promote this story, and influential individuals like Leonardo DiCaprio took leadership and said I support this! His facebook post alone persuaded over a million signatures, showing big international bodies that both the general public and the scientific community was watching. (eyes pic) Another individual who showed leadership was Secretary John Kerry, who was shown in the film and mentioned in the book as he took on the story of the Ross Sea MPA as personal part of his own legacy and became instrumental in bringing major powerhouses China and Russia, the very last two countries, on board. The establishment of the Ross Sea MPA wasn’t just a win for Antarctica or the global ocean, this was a win for humanity and a peace treaty. If enough of us stand up, we can actually make a difference. (Weller, 2021.) (Frink & Weller, 2017.) (Brooks, 2016.) (Brooks et al. 2019.)

Secretary John Kerry (Left) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Right)

A Lack of Traditional Ecological Knowledge:

Although there are many biodiverse life forms inhabiting Antarctica, there are no native peoples. This can be considered both a pro and a con in terms of management. In Ostrom’s case studies, she found that her design principles were most prominent and effective in smaller indigenous communities who share a baseline and have local or traditional ecological knowledge imbedded in themselves as a people generationally and within the land that they inhabit. Collective action and sustainable management is best fostered in a community where they realize that their natural resources are limited and develop a conservation ethic (Johannes, 2002.) This realization tends to occur in communities like small island nations who are limited to the resources available in their environmental commons. Indigenous peoples that are limited in their resources become away of the limitation when they begin to reach carrying capacity or when demand is greater than supply. They then realize that their resources are limited and develop and implement management solutions to conserve their natural resources. They learn from their past experiences and apply conservation strategies for the future. But, without an indigenous population in Antarctica, the exploiters of the resource are foreign bodies may not experience firsthand what it's like to reap the costs of overexploitation, so they don’t develop a conservation ethic. Further, the resources taken from Antartica are shipped overseas for people in other countries to consumer and the goal is to generate maximum profit. For indigenous people, they are the ones directly consuming the resources for their survival and livelihoods.

Related Case Study: The Presumpscot River

A great example of this is the story of the indigenous people of the Presumpscot River. In this case, the river is their life source. They refer to it as the river to which they belonged, the idea with this is that the environment and ecosystem is not separate from them, it is something they belong to. This traditional ecological knowledge is deep and generational, it's about being imbedded within the places they are. The Abenaki people depended on the arrival of the salmon in the spring. The Abenaki and the salmon have adapted together for thousands of years, and the people directly rely on this rich and bountiful food source after the hard winter. However, when European colonizers arrived, they had similar fishing techniques but very different motivations. They held a different worldview, they sent fish overseas to feed people in other countries and generate profit, but the indigenous people were subsistence fishing, only taking what they need to sustain themselves and their family. They also were directly consuming the fish, which means they share a different and more intimate bond of reciprocity with the resources versus catching as much as you can and shipping it off. The Europeans thought of the fish as an abundant and endless supply because they had a different worldview and mentality, not understanding the natural cycles like the Abenaki people did. They never developed a conservation ethic because they lacked traditional ecological knowledge. (Brooks & Brooks, 2010.) Without any indigenous peoples to Antarctica, the environmental commons are at risk of the tragedy of the commons. Outside users are selfish and profit motivated, with no traditional ecological knowledge or conservation ethic. The only positive to there not being any indigenous peoples that belong to Antartica is that no native populations have to be considered when making management decisions, removing one layer of complication from the intricate web of management.

SES Management Framework

Learning to Manage the Commons:

Antarctica is considered a global commons. It is challenging to manage the commons because the commons contain common pool resources. These kinds of resources are non-excludable, have high subtractability, and are rivalrous. If the commons are left unmanaged, it is considered open access, which is never sustainable because it implies that there are no rules, and it becomes a free for all situation. This phenomenon can also be referred to as the tragedy of the commons, where users are selfish, norm free, and are maximizers of short-term benefits. Hardin proposed that solving this tragedy and becoming sustainable can be achieved by restricting access to the good and creating incentives for users to invest in resources instead of exploiting it. This is a top-down approach involving government control where external actors punish or reward users and institutions like privatization and assigning property rights play an important role. (Hardin, 1968.) According to Clark, the four vital elements of large-scale management and policy making are humans, values, institutions, and resources. Skillful application of solutions is necessary to encompass these elements and achieve sustainable management. (Clark et al., 2015.)

Elinor Ostrom and her SES Framework:

The person who really brought these ideas to life was Elinor Ostrom. The first woman to win a nobel prize in economics, Ostrom challenged the conventional wisdom of privatization and control by showing that locals are capable of managing their local commons on their own terms. The traditional assumption is that humans are helpless and need help from an external authority, but Ostrom uncovers that we are all people who are capable of solving problems on all scales. This idea that communities can self-regulate without government authority lead her to create a set of design principles and a social and ecological framework where certain trends or features are highlighted as important for this kind of management. Social ecological systems are an integrated complex system that includes both social and ecological aspects in a two-way feedback relationship. Benefits and impacts are shared, so if we view a system from a socioecological lens, we can better manage systems considering all the ecological and social elements, and therefore understand the bigger picture producing the most efficient result. The ecological aspects include the size, productivity, predictability, and mobility of the resource system. The social aspects pertain to number of users, presence of leadership, norms and social capital, knowledge of the system, importance to the users, and collective choice rules. When social and ecological aspects are intertwined and this framework is applied to a system, it can foster collective action. Collective action works through incentives. If the members of the group know that they will directly benefit from future harvest, they have incentive to self-regulate and work together. Having a shared past and anticipation of a shared future means future resources have high value, reinforcing ideas of trust and reciprocity. However, in her case studies, she found these characteristics were most prominent in smaller indigenous communities who share a baseline and have local or traditional ecological knowledge imbedded in themselves as a people generationally and within the land that they inhabit. That is why it is easier to manage at small scales rather than large scales. Large scale management is difficult because more users are involved and things like international unanimous agreements have to be made, which as we learned with case studies like the Ross Sea Marine Protected area, it’s hard to get everyone to agree and it takes a major culmination of effort from many bodies. Overall, Ostrom’s work shows that there are other ways to manage and that not all situations can be solved with simple solutions. There is complexity, there are often multiple types of governance that can be operating at the same time. Ostrom believed that we can develop management sophisticated enough to not overexploit and lead to the tragedy of the commons. We can achieve this when expected benefit of managing exceeds perceived costs of investing. From there, better rules and norms will promote self-organization. In the context of her work, the unit of analysis is the whole system, trying to understand the whole social and ecological culmination within the system, and her framework helps to break down resource system or units in the environmental commons, the government system or institutions in place, and the actors or users involved.(Ostrom, 1990, 1990, 2009.) Thanks to research from Cox & Tomas Elinor Ostrom’s design principles have been proven to be successful in management. (Cox & Tomas, 2010.)

Application of the SES Framework to Antarctica:

Ecological Characteristics

Size of resource system: Large! Encompasses entire continent and surrounding seas of Antarctica. Not owned by anyone. Global scale.

Productivity of system: Extremely high productivity, but its productivity is being impacted by factors like overexploitation and climate change.

Predictability of system dynamics: Antarctica is a stable and fairly predictable environment, but weather is harsh and unpredictable, especially with climate change.

Resource unit mobility: The continent itself is sedentary, but the marine resources are highly mobile.

Social characteristics

Number of users: Millions of users consume resources like fish oil and “chilean seabass” from Antarctica, even if its unknowingly. Arguably the whole globe is a user, since Antarctica belongs to no one country and is a global commons for peace and science.

Leadership: Lots of leadership has been shown in the story of protecting Antarctica. Influential people like Leonardo DiCaprio and Secretary John Kerry have incorporated this conservation into their legacies, inspiring much support from the global community.

Norms/social capital: Vary greatly within this system. The members of CCAMLR hold very different interest and world views based on their norms and social capital. This makes coming to unanimous decisions extremely difficult.

Knowledge of the SES: A lot of research has been put into understanding this system. Antarctica is a place dedicated to discovery, peace, and science. However, it is an extremely isolated place that members of the general public may be less aware of. Using media can help spread knowledge of the SES.

Importance of resource to users: Antarctica and its resources have rallied great support from users who want to protect it because it is of importance and value to them.

Collective-choice rules: Users are directly involved in management decisions. Antarctica is a rare success story of international agreement for the greater good. The public has persuasive power and can influence those in the position of power and decision making.

The resource system of environmental commons is Antarctica. The governance system or institutions in place are the Antarctic Treaty, the Ross Sea MPA, and the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Conventions under the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) may be the most successful system for governing a global commons. The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is an international body with 24 Member States and the European Union. Annual meetings are held to promote long term cooperation and trust among nations. They were the main actor or body that was important in getting the Ross Sea MPA passed. The Ross Sea MPA is the world’s only large-scale international MPA and it bans industrial fishing and related activities, but does not have jurisdiction over mining, tourism, sealing, or whaling. That is why it is important to make sure there are multiple institutions in place to protect the whole of the system. Luckily, mining is banned under the Antarctic Treaty, commercial whaling is prohibited under the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and commercial sealing has ended on its own. (Brooks et al, 2019.) Other users and actors besides the members of CCAMLR include commercial krill and toothfish fisheries, regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), everyday consumers, scientists, celebrities like John Kerry and Leonardo DiCaprio, environmentalists and supporters, as well as arguably the entire globe because Antarctica doesn’t belong to any one body and is a land for all to use for peace and science.

Discussion

Related Case Study: The High Seas

The Ross Sea is considered the high seas. The high seas makeup 65% of the world ocean, so of course it is not managed by one body. Jurisdiction in the high seas involves very complex laws on many scales, from international, regional, or specific to fisheries. In this system countries and organizations are members and have important voting powers in terms of quantity of fish caught, protection of coral reefs, deep sea mining, trade, and shipping. This is an example of collective choice rules. There are a lot of regional authorities in the high seas and on the national level there are exclusive economic zones that are directly managed by countries.

One important institution is the High Seas Treaty or Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ). This is a very recent agreement that was just signed into law. The ratification process of the BBNJ outlines the difficulty with governing resources beyond national jurisdiction because each country has to approve it and it can be very challenging to reach a unanimous decision when actors hold different interests and opinions. The purpose of the BBNJ is to create marine protected areas because before the agreement there was no set process to create a marine protected area in the high seas. This agreement creates ability and tools to propose protected areas and make formal agreements. Today the BBNJ is not completely ratified yet, meaning it's been signed from the UN into our national law. Just like how America has not ratified Paris Agreement. In order to create marine protected areas in the high seas, this agreement has to be ratified in all countries. One plus to this specific agreement is that the vote is going to be a 2/3 majority which is good because not all countries are going to be in favor of putting marine protected areas in place, but a 2/3 vote allows for this to maybe become possible.

A specific place in the high seas that is tricky to manage is the Southeast Pacific. It is made up of high seas and exclusive economic zones where there are many regional management authorities working together in the South Pacific. Without the BBNJ in place, you have to look at regional management authorities, a few examples are the IATTC, CPPS, ISA, and SPRFMO. There are many regional management authorities governing these commons. It is complicated to pass law forward and achieve sustainable management when theres so many players concentrated in just one region. In cases like this, negotiations can take several years. Just like we see with the Ross Sea MPA.

In terms of international high seas management, the UN is at the top, specific agreements and conventions allow for designation and there are several layers that must be analyzed and considered. The goal of Chavez-Molina et al. is to determine how we can put forward conservation proposals in the Southeast Pacific when international policy is just so complex. A solution to this? When you can’t just create a protected area, you have to work with the tools that you do have. Start management in one an area at a time. The closest thing to marine protected areas is to establish no catch zones, a ban on mining, halt shipping and trade, limit pollution, and so on. Going level by level, unlike working with a whole country where you can essentially talk to all stakeholders at once, you have to go to each individual organization. This makes things much more complicated. The difference between the Southeast Pacific and the Southern Ocean is that the Southern Ocean is governed by one authority so it's much easier to create a protected area. Overall, the high seas are not easy to manage! At the end of the day, it always comes down to money in international agreements. (Chavez-Molina et al., 2023.) (Gu, 2023.)

Related Case Study: Outer Space Treaty

Making management decisions on a global scale is hard enough, but how do you go about management in outer space? The outer space treaty addresses just that. The goal of the outer space treaty is to ban weapons of mass destruction from outer space. With similar motivations and guidelines as we see with Antartica, the outer space treaty is about dedicating space to peace and science. Luckily, most of the world has signed this, but what about the moon? The moon treaty or agreement is a follow up to the outer space treaty that goes into more detail. There is to be no militaristic activity, no exploring or using the moon or any other celestial bodies in any way unless its mutually beneficial and equally accessible for everyone. All must reap the benefits. This treaty is less effective because some major countries like China, the US, and Russia haven’t signed it, but it was proposed in the concern for how we are going to use the Moon and other celestial bodies, like for example creating Moon bases to then get to Mars. (The Outer Space Treaty, 1966.)

Related Case Study: Montreal Protocol

In the case of the Montreal Protocol, hazardous aerosol chemicals that were commonly used in refrigerants called CFCs were found to be depleting the ozone layer of the Earth. The ozone layer in our atmosphere protects us from harmful sun rays and skin cancer. Large actor Dupont actually came forward and took leadership to create an alternative substance to replace CFCs. Although their motivation was to be the dominating body in that market, this is a great example of Ostrom’s design principle, leadership, playing a main role. Dupont’s initial leadership lead to to international agreement and signing of the Montreal Protocol, which calls on substances that deplete the ozone layer. This universal ratification makes it one of the most successful international treaties and a great example of the importance of leadership in management. Dupont and all countries took leadership to sign it and truly followed the treaty, there were major reductions in CFCs. Research even shows that the Ozone hole is slowly closing, but it still remains open today. Luckily, as of 2019 the Ozone hole is the smallest it's been since its discovery and it should close beyond discovery conditions by 2060. Today it still persists as the chemicals remain in the atmosphere for a prolonged time, but without the Montreal Protocol and if we had continued the use of CFCs, today there likely would have been an ozone hole in the Arctic too. Overall, the Montreal Protocol was a binding agreement and had strong direct outcomes thanks to the leadership of a main actor. (Albrecht & Parker, 2019.)

Solutions

Future Challenges: Climate Change

As Antarctica is an ice-covered continent filled of life that is specially adapted to the extreme cold temperatures and presence of ice, Antartica is extremely vulnerable to and at risk for climate change. The main drivers of anthropogenic climate change are our continuously growing population and demand for energy use. Our human lifestyles produce a lot of greenhouse gases and that’s why the phenomenon is referred to as anthropogenic climate change, it is directly driven by human activity. Some of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions are fossil fuel burning in the energy sector, like the use of oil and natural gas, industrial factory production, transportation from personal commutes, flying, and also shipping and goods transport, and agricultural practices for both crops and livestock all produce a lot of greenhouse gases. Our use and impacts have only increased through time. The IPCC report states that global surface temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period in the last 2,000 years and I think if we continue along the same trajectory, we will continue to break record highs. Climate change has brought increasing natural disasters and extreme climate events such as heatwaves, droughts, floods, and cyclones, leaving millions of people displaced or with food and water insecurity. The more vulnerable communities who historically contribute the least to climate change are also the ones being most disproportionately affected. Other direct human health impacts include the increased prevalence of infectious disease and decreased mental health. Some mitigation solutions to anthropogenic climate change suggested in the report include using solar or wind energy, developing urban green infrastructure, improving forest and grassland management, and reducing food waste. The report goes on to mention several other solutions, but also highlights that policy and law truly lie at the heart of addressing this global issue because these institutions allow mitigation techniques to be created and implemented, just like the Antarctic Treaty and the Ross Sea MPA. The report concludes with high confidence that in at least 18 countries policies effectively enhance energy efficiency and lead to reduced or removed emissions. (IPCC, 2023.)

Lessons and Take Aways:

Some of the general lessons for managing natural resources that we I have learned throughout the semester is that tragedies of the commons are real but are not inevitable. With proper management practices, we can successfully use common pool resources without depletion. The conditions most likely to foster successful management is when users self-organize because the resource system directly affects them in both benefits and costs. It's also easier to perceive benefits and come up with long term management strategies when users have some knowledge of the resource system with good indicators of resource conditions or when the resource has high predictability. Further, users who depend on the resource for livelihood or have intrinsic value to it have higher interest in sustaining it. Overall, if users share an image of how the resource system operates and know that their actions affect the system and expected joint benefits outweigh costs then they want to manage it sustainably. However, there are many challenges to applying solutions to global scale problems. These challenges include increasing cultural diversity which decreases the likelihood of finding shared interests, complications of interlinked common pool resources because as we address global scale issues there are more complex interactions and hence require increased specialization, but another challenge is requirement of unanimous agreement as a collective choice rule which makes it even harder to get users to agree especially on international levels, like we saw with the Ross Sea MPA. We also only have one planet to experiment with and there are accelerating rates of change that we have to adapt to. When we frame climate change as a tragedy of the commons it limits how we confront climate change. Brown et al. 2019 highlights that climate change is a dilemma of decision making and moral values rather than simply a global resource problem. To truly solve the climate crisis, we have to make collective action decisions, build the necessary moral frameworks to foster collective action, and make fundamental changes in our governance systems to better manage first and second order risks in relation to climate change.

Conclusion and Suggestions for the Future:

In the future, next steps we must take as a global community are implementing global biodiversity protection at the scale and pace required to keep up with climate change. Social norms and lifestyle changes need to be made on a global scale, which is a very difficult goal to achieve. However, perhaps with the continued strengthening of our global knowledge, education, and understanding of environmental systems and our impacts on them using the powerful tool of inspirational media using social media as a platform, more success stories can be written. Just like with the passing of the Ross Sea MPA, it's going to be a slow process that requires the will power and effort from many actors willing to cooperate for the greater good.

Managing a global commons is extremely difficult with geopolitics, past diplomatic relationships are involved, very different interests and world views are held, and many compromises have to be made to reach a consensus. Antarctica is a rare and special case where the environmental commons along with all international tensions could be put aside for global peace and collective science. When we try to manage other commons in the future it will be more complicated. I consider the management of Antarctica to be greatly successful and inspirational. With the Antarctic Treaty in place, Antarctica had the perfect conditions for sustainable management. The global movement for the establishment of the Ross Sea MPA proves that change is possible when people come together. That is why I think the lessons learned from the management successes in Antartica throughout history can be applied elsewhere in the world, hopefully inspiring further collective action in the name of peace.

We may be in the age of climate change and overexploitation, but we are also in the technology and social media age which has very strong influence over the global public. The use of media is the key to future management success because when people not only see for the first time but are immersed in the natural beauty of an ecosystem that they had no idea about, its awe inspiring and triggers feelings of connectivity and a desire to protect. Images have the power to take people on a journey, and people like to see it to believe it. That’s why I think the continued use of photography and film making is an absolute essential for creating more positive change in the future and fostering collective action. It makes people feel something and want to be a part of it in a world that we are often so disconnected from nature we forget the true beauty and complexity that lies under our noses.