With the Biodiversa+ project Weddell Sea Observatory of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Change (WOBEC), we aim to create the DNA of a distributed long-term ecosystem observatory in the Eastern Weddell Sea / King Haakon VII Sea in the Southern Ocean. The Weddell Sea is crucial for climate regulation and food provision and home to many protected species only occuring in waters around Antarctica. The EU and the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) are working to establish a Weddell Sea Marine Protected Area (WSMPA).

Recent evidence shows significant ocean warming and sea-ice loss all around Antarctica, affecting biodiversity and ecosystem services. Realizing that no systematic ecosystem monitoring exists in the Eastern Weddell Sea, scientists of 11 institutes from 8 countries join forces together with stakeholders from economy, conservation and society to design and apply a monitoring framework supporting global biodiversity goals,  establishing a baseline for measuring changes, and strengthening the WSMPA process. WOBEC’s main goals are:

1. Public Access: Make biodiversity and ecosystem data – historic and recent - publicly accessible.
2. Stakeholder Engagement: Co-design a monitoring framework with stakeholders from science, governance and economy.
3. Advanced Monitoring: Develop and apply a monitoring strategy using both established and advanced technology, covering local to regional and seasonal to multi-decadal scales.