Landmark Hobart deal creates world's largest marine park in icy Antarctic seas

Ice on the Ross Sea.

The Antarctic Ross Sea is the healthiest marine ecosystem on the planet – home to toothfish, seals, a range of penguins and a unique population of killer whale.

Lying south of New Zealand, it is vast, cold and largely untainted by human contact.

After a landmark deal reached in Hobart on Friday, it will stay this way for at least the next 35 years. More than 50 countries including Australia, the US, China, Russia and members of the European Union agreed to make the Ross Sea the world's first large-scale marine park in international waters.

It means 1.55 million square kilometres of ocean – an area nearly twice the size of NSW – will be protected.

Read Adam Morton’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Landmark Hobart deal creates world's largest marine park in icy Antarctic seas.”