Antarctic Peninsula Region south of the South Orkney Islands

Fishing and refuse disposal are to be banned in the 1st high seas Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Southern Ocean, an area of the ocean that contains more species than the Galapagos Islands.
This will allow scientists to monitor the effects of climate change in this region. This is only the first of possibly twelve such areas.

This new MPA is in the Antarctic Peninsula Region south of the South Orkney Islands and was approved by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) at its recent meeting. It is slightly larger than Portugal, about 94,000 square km, and is the result of 4 years of development work. The ban starts in May 2010.

Source: Simply Green