SCAR was essential in the very formation of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), providing the scientific basis and support for a convention that could manage krill in the Southern Ocean. Today, SCAR’s mission is to advance international research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean across a range of disciplines, and to provide independent and objective scientific advice and information to the Antarctic Treaty System, including to CCAMLR.
Representing SCAR at this year’s (2024) SC-CAMLR and CCAMLR meetings were SC-ATS Chief Officer Assoc. Prof. Cassandra Brooks (USA), Prof. Mary-Anne Lea (Australia), and Dr Noémie Friscourt (SCAR Fellow). New SCAR President Professor Gary Wilson also attended part of the meeting.
This year, SCAR had their second Ant-ICON/SC-ATS Science-Policy fellow, Dr Noémie Friscourt, join us at CCAMLR. Dr Friscourt has a background in marine biology, specializing in the application of biomolecular techniques to study polar food webs. She was recently awarded her PhD, and presented her work on the role of Antarctic fur seals as bioindicators of seasonal and ocean basin scale variation of the Southern Ocean food web. The Scientific Committee congratulated Dr Friscourt for her research, noting the value of developing novel low impact methods for collecting data and encouraging submitting updates. The Scientific Committee also noted the importance and success of the scholarship in building capacity.
The call for 2025 SCAR Fellows is now open. Please visit our website for more information.