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 G. Area Covered by the Regime 



There is a subsidiary set of alternatives concern- 

 ing the geographic area to be covered by the regime. 

 The conservation regime of the proposed federal action 

 would apply to the species which comprise the Antarctic 

 marine ecosystem. The Antarctic marine ecosystem is 

 generally considered to be geographically defined by 

 the Antarctic Convergence which shifts in space on a 

 seasonal basis. Linking the regime to the species which 

 are found south of the Convergence best provides for 

 coverage of the full ecosystem. 



There are two alternatives to this approach based 

 on geographic limits, which would provide for enforce- 

 ment of conservation measures. The first is to limit 

 the regime to the area of the Antarctic Treaty, south 

 of 60°S latitude. Such a result could be the easiest 

 to negotiate, at least among the Antarctic Treaty 

 Parties. However, it would seriously compromise the 

 effectiveness of conservation measures. Since the 

 Antarctic Convergence lies significantly north of the 

 Treaty area in a number of places, areas of important 

 concentrations of Antarctic marine living resources 

 would not be covered. 



A second possibility would be to fix a geographic 

 limit for the applicability of the regime sufficiently 

 far north to ensure that all areas south of the 

 Convergence were covered. The difficulty with this 

 approach is that it would cover species not part of the 

 Antarctic marine ecosystem and thus create difficult 

 technical and political obstacles to negotiating the 

 regime . 



