Plans for world's largest ocean sanctuary in Antarctic blocked

A plan to create the world's largest marine sanctuary in Antarctic waters was shot down when a key conservation summit failed to reach a consensus, with environmentalists on Saturday decrying a lack of scientific foresight.

Member states of the organisation tasked with overseeing the sustainable exploitation of the Southern Ocean failed at an annual meeting Friday to agree over the a 1.8 million square kilometre (1.1 million square miles) maritime protection zone.

The proposed sanctuary -- some five times the size of Germany -- would ban fishing in a vast area in the Weddell sea, protecting key species including seals, penguins and whales.

Consensus is needed from all 24 members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and the European Union.

But environmental groups say Russia and China -- whose concerns over compliance issues and fishing rights have proved key stumbling blocks in the past -- along with Norway, played a part in rejecting the plan.

"This was an historic opportunity to create the largest protected area on Earth in the Antarctic: safeguarding wildlife, tackling climate change and improving the health of our global oceans," Greenpeace's Frida Bengtsson said in a statement on Saturday.

"Twenty-two delegations came here to negotiate in good faith but, instead, serious scientific proposals for urgent marine protection were derailed by interventions which barely engaged with the science and made a mockery of any pretence of real deliberation."