José María Figueres is the chair of Antarctica2030 – a group dedicated to the protection of Antarctica’s Southern Ocean – and the former president of Costa Rica. Ashlan Gorse Cousteau is the vice chair of Antarctica2030, as well as a journalist and explorer featured on multiple television programs.
The recent decision by the Marine Stewardship Council's (MSC) assessment body to recertify Antarctica Krill as “sustainable” raises a fundamental question: Are certification standards keeping pace with environmental reality or legitimizing growing ecological risk?
This is not a technical dispute. It goes to the credibility of one of the world’s most recognized eco-labels and to how we govern one of the planet’s last great global commons.
Antarctic krill, a shrimp-like crustacean that forms vast swarms in the Southern Ocean, sits at the foundation of a uniquely fragile ecosystem. It provides up to 96 percent of the caloric intake for penguin species such as Adélie, chinstrap, and gentoo, while also sustaining whales, seals, and seabirds across vast migratory routes.
Its importance extends beyond biodiversity. Krill plays a measurable role in climate regulation. Through the sinking of carbon-rich faecal pellets, it helps remove up to 23 million tons of carbon dioxide annually from the atmosphere – a natural service of global significance equivalent to taking 35 million gas-powered cars off the road annually.
Yet, this keystone species is increasingly targeted by a growing industrial fleet supplying aquaculture feed, pet food, and nutritional supplements.
The pressure is no longer abstract.
In 2024, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) was forced to close the krill-fishing season three months early after its catch limit of 620,000 tons was reached for the first time. To put this number into context, that is equal to 150,000 midsized cars or about 100,000 elephants weighing 6 tons each.
This was not simply a matter of volume. It followed the failure to renew spatial management measures designed to spread fishing effort. The result has been an increasing concentration of fishing activity in ecologically sensitive areas of the Antarctic Peninsula – precisely where krill aggregates and predators, such as whales and penguins, depend on it most.
The fishery’s certification rests in part on the assertion that current catches represent only about 1 percent of total krill biomass. But, this headline figure obscures a more relevant ecological reality: Impact is determined not only by how much is taken but where and when it is removed.
Extracting large quantities from concentrated feeding grounds, within compressed seasonal windows, can have disproportionate effects on dependent species.
Scientific evidence supports this concern. A NOAA study examining three decades of penguin data found that localized fishing pressure had impacts comparable to adverse significant environmental conditions on penguin growth and reproductive success.
CCAMLR itself has acknowledged that its current management approach is “not precautionary” due to the concentration of catch.
At the same time, the scientific basis for management is increasingly uncertain. Krill biomass estimates rely on surveys conducted many years apart, with the most recent data already several years old. Meanwhile, climate change is rapidly altering the Antarctic system.
Krill reproduction depends on algae growing beneath sea ice during winter, yet the Antarctic Peninsula has experienced record-low sea ice levels for three consecutive years – a shift not fully reflected in current stock assessments. Less sea ice means less algae and less krill.
In other words, decisions are being made using incomplete data in a system undergoing rapid change.
Against this backdrop, the determination that this fishery meets the highest order of sustainability is difficult to reconcile. This is particularly striking given that one of the key conditions of the earlier certification – reducing localized fishing pressure – has not been fully met.
Equally important, a long-proposed marine protected area (MPA) in the Antarctic Peninsula – widely seen as a cornerstone of precautionary management – remains unadopted.
The cumulative effect is a widening gap between certification as "sustainable" and the real-world conditions on the ground – or more precisely, in the ocean.
Public confidence is beginning to reflect this tension. Incidents such as the entanglement and death of a humpback whale, alongside decisions by major retailers to remove krill products from their shelves, suggest that markets are starting to question whether current practices align with the expectations behind a sustainability label.
This is not an argument against krill fishing. It is an argument for aligning certification with science and governance with ecological reality.
The Southern Ocean is not an ordinary fishery. It is a global climate regulator, a biodiversity reservoir, and one of the few places where multilateral governance still functions on the basis of science and consensus. That system depends on credibility.
Until CCAMLR strengthens its management – including restoring spatial protections and establishing the Antarctic Peninsula MPA – it is difficult to see how a sustainability certification can even be debated, let alone approved. We hope that the MSC’s reviewers seriously consider the science-based objections against the sustainability certification and revoke it.
The deeper issue is not the krill fishery itself. It is whether we are applying standards of sustainability with sufficient rigor in a rapidly changing world.
If certification continues under present conditions, it risks signaling not environmental leadership, but institutional lag.
When that happens, the label intended to guide responsible consumption may instead obscure the very risks it was designed to prevent, with the Southern Ocean paying the ultimate price.
