CCAMLR executive secretary Andrew Wright said Wednesday he was hopeful "that we will get an outcome at this meeting" on the two proposals.
"I'm not sure that they will all get up (succeed) in the current form but I am ... quietly confident that some revisions will take place to both proposals and one, or hopefully both, will get up," he told AFP.
Australia, along with France and the European Union, has called for a 1.6 million square kilometre (640,000 sq mile) protected zone off East Antarctica, on the frozen continent's Indian Ocean side. Fishing would only be approved by consensus.
The United States and New Zealand are pushing for a 1.25 million square kilometre zone of the Ross Sea, the deep bay on Antarctica's Pacific side, which would be a no-fishing zone.
Because all 25 members of the commission have to agree for a decision to be made, regardless of extent of the interest they have as a nation in Antarctica, no agreement yet been reached on either proposal.
Wright said it was not only the size of the zones which could be negotiated, but also the duration for which they would be kept as sanctuaries, along with elements such as research and monitoring programmes.
New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully has refused to rule out scaling back the New Zealand/US proposal which has already been substantially reduced from the 1.6 million square kilometres initially proposed.
"Some modifications were made to the proposal, and there may be more yet," he said on Tuesday.
McCully said he was optimistic, but not confident, of reaching agreement in Hobart, particularly given the concerns of Russia.
"We've got signs of good engagement leading up to the meeting but getting 25 countries to agree on something complex is going to be difficult," he admitted.
"All of the negotiations are quite challenging but we’re satisfied that there’s engagement and good faith at the moment."
If accepted, the combined area of the two sanctuaries is 2.85 million square kilometres, a fraction smaller than India, more than five times larger than France and 12 times the size of Britain.
Each prposal has the potential to create the world's largest marine protection zone.- AFP
Each prposal has the potential to create the world's largest marine protection zone.- AFP
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