As the latest annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) nears its conclusion in Hobart, Australia, disagreements over krill fishing have renewed on its sidelines.
The Antarctic Wildlife Alliance, a U.S.-based NGO campaigning for protection of the Southern Ocean, has called for tighter restrictions on krill fishing; meanwhile, firms like Aker BioMarine have long claimed that precautionary catch limits for the species represent a tiny fraction of its overall biomass and that the fishery represents a “global benchmark” for ecosystem-based management.
In its latest call for tighter restrictions on krill fishing, the former organization has accused Aker of using misleading and outdated scientific claims on its marketing materials.
"The industry is using outdated and inaccurate metrics to promote their products, which misleads people investing in and purchasing from them,” Antarctic Wildlife Alliance Executive Director Ally Kristan told SeafoodSource, pointing to Aker BioMarine’s 2025 annual report and sections on the firm’s website detailing the company’s certifications.
Kristan is specifically referring to Aker’s continued use of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s "A" rating from its public sustainability evaluation tool FishSource on Aker marketing materials and online advertising, “even though that rating was from 2016.”
“Ever since 2021, SFP has dropped the score considerably and now considers the fishery ‘data- deficient’ due to it being underresearched,” she said. “For example, there have been no acoustic surveys since 2019. The reality is that there is tremendous environmental and scientific concern surrounding the Antarctic krill fishery. With the catch trigger limit having been reached early two years in a row and intensifying spatial concentration of catch, that concern is only growing.”
Pål Skogrand, the chief policy officer at Aker QRILL Company, a subsidiary of Aker BioMarine that accounted for the single largest krill catch by company in 2025, contested that assertion.
“FishSource explicitly states that it does not itself determine whether a fishery is sustainable. ‘Data-deficient’ does not mean that the stock is depleted or unsustainable,” he said. “It indicates that sufficient information is unavailable to score particular indicators under FishSource's methodology. This is quite different from saying there is insufficient scientific knowledge of the stock. It can also reflect information that exists but is not publicly accessible or limitations in the assessment framework. This is where the NGOs overreach.”
Skogrand pointed to surveys from 2000 and 2019 that “produced remarkably consistent estimates of 60.3 million and 62.6 million tons, [respectively,] supporting the assumption of relatively stable large-scale biomass.”
“[FishSource] identifies concerns about localized fishing pressure and the need for finer-scale management – challenges we fully recognize and are actively working to address,” he said. “FishSource finds no evidence that the stock is approaching precautionary limit thresholds and confirms that exploitation rates remain very low. FishSource concludes that projected stock status under CCAMLR's current harvest control rules remains precautionary.”
SFP Global Supply Chains Director David Martin told SeafoodSource that the tool has actually identified some concerns in the region, explaining that “developments in the fishery over the past few years have led to a decline in key FishSource scores and raised concerns about how the fishery is being managed.”
“A reliable fishery-independent survey has not been conducted since 2019, well beyond a generation time for krill,” he said. “As such, there is high uncertainty surrounding the current biomass and exploitation without those surveys.”
Martin pointed to the lapse of a key CCAMLR conservation tool as particularly concerning.
In 2024, Conservation Measure 51-07, also referred to as CM 51-07, expired after having been introduced in 2009 as an interim spatial management measure. Fishing catch totals have since been limited to a 620,000-ton trigger level and subdivided among subareas 48.1 to 48.4 to distribute fishing effort and reduce overlap with predator foraging areas.
In each of the two seasons since then, fishing companies have hit the 620,000-ton trigger level months before the end of the season, in part by focusing their efforts on places where they can catch the most krill.
“[CM 51-07] was repeatedly extended while a more refined management system was developed but lapsed in 2024 due to a lack of consensus,” Martin said. “This removed spatial constraints and allowed catches to concentrate in key hotspots, particularly in Subarea 48.1. The loss of CM 51-07 represents a significant gap in the current management framework. There is increasing concern regarding the spatial concentration of fishing effort and the potential for localized depletion, particularly in areas with high predator demand. This loss of spatial management triggers may have contributed to the fishery closing early in the past two seasons after the quota trigger was met.”
In defense of the fishery’s sustainability, Skogrand also pointed to the Marine Stewardship Council’s reassessment of the krill fishery in 2026.
“The latest publicly available [MSC] document recommended recertification following an extensive scientific review,” he said. “This process is in the absolute final stages now after objections.”
Claire Christian, the executive director at the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), countered that claim by explaining MSC certifications “really aren't relevant” in the context of CCAMLR discussions.
“CCAMLR has a very specific set of standards under which fisheries are supposed to operate, and ASOC does not think the current management of the krill fishery meets those standards,” she said. “Over the past two fishing seasons, we've seen the fishery concentrate in relatively small areas that are also foraging hotspots for krill predators. This increases the risk of localized depletion of krill, meaning that there may not be enough krill left in the area for predators to eat. CCAMLR is supposed to avoid such situations, and it, therefore, needs to take steps to implement the new management measures that it has been discussing for years. CCAMLR also needs to designate a [marine protected area] in the Antarctic Peninsula region to ensure effective protection of the region's ecosystem.”
Christian explained that this year’s CCAMLR annual meeting comes as the commission has signaled intentions for years to implement a new management system for the krill fishery that involves distributing the catch over a larger area into smaller management units, which would be equipped with management systems capable of detecting changes in the ecosystem or the krill population so catch limits can be adjusted accordingly.
Skogrand said his company is also open to a reform of krill fishery management.
“The question of how catches should be distributed spatially has occupied CCAMLR for years, and we strongly support modernizing that management,” he said.
As the meeting comes to a close, industrial desire to get a slice of the krill market continues to grow at a fervent pace.
Recently, Yong Li One, a 140-meter ship billed as China’s first domestically developed krill fishing and processing vessel, departed from China’s eastern port of Ningbo.
Eurasia Ocean Fishery Co., which owns the vessel, said it expects to harvest 10,000 tons of krill a year on the ship, into which it has invested CNY 650 million (USD 97 million, EUR 86 million). Eurasia Ocean Fishery CEO Jiang Caiguo told local media earlier this year that krill resources were a “gold mine” waiting to be tapped by his Antarctic-bound vessel.
