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The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR; www.scar.org) held a workshop of experts over 19-20 May in Cambridge, UK to assess the conservation status of the Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus – an ACAP-listed species - within the Antarctic Treaty Area (south of 60ºS).

In 2007 the Southern Giant Petrel was downlisted from Vulnerable to Near Threatened by BirdLife International (www.birdlife.org.uk) on behalf of the World Conservation Union (IUCN).  The SCAR Workshop considered the latest (including unpublished) data on the species’ population size and trends, and decided that the regional (and global) populations warranted further down-listing to the category of Least Concern.  As a consequence of the workshop’s decision, BirdLife International will now institute a formal review of the species’ global status in 2009.

Meanwhile, the Committee for Environmental Protection of the Antarctic Treaty System (www.ats.aq), meeting in Kiev, Ukraine in June 2008 after the workshop, accepted SCAR’s conclusions, and, as a consequence, recommended to the XXXI Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) that followed that the Southern Giant Petrel should not be listed as a Specially Protected Species under Annex II of the ATS’ Protocol on Environmental Protection.  This advice was accepted by the XXXI ATCM, bringing to a seeming end a process that goes back several years.