The proposal for two large marine protected areas of the Ross Sea and the East Antarctic formally entered the agenda of the Committee. However, due to opposition from China and Russia for procedural reasons, no substantive discussions were made at the formal meeting of the committee.

Countries are committed to accelerating the work of the BBNJ Ad Hoc Working Group, and will respond to the issue of the conservation and sustainable use of BBNJ before the end of the 69th session of the UN General Assembly, including decisions on whether to develop an international treaty under the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The meeting adopted a series of recommendations on the process to initiate the legal framework for the protection and sustainable use of BBNJ by consensus. These recommendations include a series of issues to be discussed as a whole in this process, including: marine genetic resources, environmental impact assessments, zone management tools and skill building and marine technology transfer – for “2011 Package of ideas”.

The meeting adopted the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit-sharing and adopted the Aichi Target, which includes the area of terrestrial biological resources reserves should reach 17% and the area of marine biological resources reserves should reach 10% by 2020. The United Nations Decade of Biodiversity was launched.

The South Orkney Islands South Shelf Marine Reserve was established, and China began the krill detection in the Southern Ocean in the same year.

The meeting officially launched a discussion on the CCAMLR marine protected area.