At its XlXth meeting, in June 1986, SCAR and several of 

 its subsidiary bodies considered a number of issues relevant 

 to the conservation and protection of marine mammals and 

 their habitat in the Southern Ocean. These included: 

 facilitation and coordination of ecological research in the 

 Southern Ocean; establishment of additional categories of 

 protected areas; environmental monitoring and data manage- 

 ment; waste disposal practices; and development of a 

 comprehensive plan for Antarctic conservation. 



In 197 2, one of the SCAR Working Groups, the Working 

 Group on Biology, established a Subcommittee on Living 

 Resources of the Southern Ocean. In 1976, the Subcommittee 

 was upgraded to become the Group of Specialists on Southern 

 Ocean Ecosystems and Their Living Resources. Also in 1976, 

 the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and the 

 Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) co-sponsored 

 the First International Conference on Living Resources of the 

 Southern Ocean. The conference report — entitled 

 "Biological Investigations of Marine Antarctic Systems and 

 Stocks" (BIOMASS) — outlined a ten-year collaborative 

 international research program "to gain a deeper under- 

 standing of the structure and dynamic functioning of the 

 Antarctic marine ecosystems as a basis for the management of 

 actual and potential living resources." Implementation of 

 the BIOMASS program involved two multi-nation research 

 efforts (the First and Second BIOMASS Experiments — FIBEX 

 and SIBEX) during the period 1981-1985. Planning and 

 coordination of FIBEX and SIBEX were done by a Steering 

 Committee — the BIOMASS Executive — and a BIOMASS Data 

 Center was established in Cambridge, England, in 1984. 



Much of the work begun under the BIOMASS Program is 

 being continued under the CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Program 

 mentioned earlier. In 1985, the SCAR Executive disbanded the 

 Group of Specialists on Southern Ocean Ecosystems and Their 

 Living Resources, while providing that the BIOMASS Executive 

 continue its work until 1989 to complete synthesis and 

 analysis of data collected during FIBEX and SIBEX. 

 Recognizing that disbanding the Group of Specialists would 

 leave no group within the Scientific Committee to act as a 

 forum for review, discussion, and coordination of biological 

 research in the Southern Ocean, the Working Group on Biology 

 proposed, and the SCAR Executive approved, establishing a new 

 Group of Specialists on Southern Ocean Ecology. The purposes 

 of this new group are to identify, encourage, and facilitate 

 interdisciplinary studies on Antarctic marine ecosystems and 

 to respond through SCAR to requests for scientific advice and 

 information. Such requests may be from the Antarctic Treaty 

 Consultative Parties, the Commission and Scientific Committee 

 for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, 

 and other international organizations with interest in 



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