Abstract: With the occurrence of warming, sea ice melting, ecosystem changes, and more human demands for natural resources, the protection of the Antarctic environment is facing great challenges. Under the active promotion of the international community, Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) have developed from a single reserve to a system with multiple types of reserve. At present, there are 72 ASPAs designated by 16 countries with the leading role of the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Chile. ASPAs system mainly covers the regions of Antarctic Peninsula and Ross Sea Victoria Land, and establishes the Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions (ACBRs) as dynamic model for reserve recognition. However, there are many problems in the ASPAs system, such as slow progress of development, disordered information management, low coverage rate of the areas, and insufficient representation of the reserve. To solve those problems, it is important to fulfill each party’s duty of the Antarctic environmental protection as the premise, to strengthen scientific cooperation as an effective way, to cope with the Antarctic climate change as the primary challenge, to conduct ecosystem-based Antarctic Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) as the development direction, eventually to promote further development of ASPAs system, and to fully implement the effective protection for the Antarctic environment and ecosystems.

Key words: Antarctic Treaty, environmental protection, Antarctic Specially Protected Areas, Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions.