The two projects of this expedition, "Census of Antarctic Marine Life" and the "Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Living Resources", have yielded good results.
 

The fisheries biology survey has been worked up completely. "Now, we know better than before that fish stocks around the Antarctic Peninsula are not yet sufficient to resume commercial fisheries" summarized Karl-Hermann Kock from the Federal Research Centre for Fisheries in Hamburg. For the first time the formerly ice shelf covered Larsen area has been subjected to a systematic biological investigation. "The unique fauna we have found in this area is not comparable with wide parts of Antarctica" stated chief scientist Julian Gutt, who is drawing from more than 20 years experience of polar research. Finally, a submarine seepage of gas also known as a cold seep, which was found two years ago by an US American working group of Eugene Domack, has been sampled for the first time. We will bring home sediment samples, microbiological material and clam shells of a typical cold seep species. "Our knowledge of this source, its origin and the reason why it must have recently ceased spewing gas will substantially increase after thorough analysis back home" commented Helge Niemann, microbiologist from the Max-Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. The chief scientist, who was clearly proud of the international cooperation observed on this expedition, said "It was a real pleasure to work and live with ambitious scientists from all over the world over a period of 10 weeks in such a limited environment as a ship".

This is quite intriguing, considering the fact that at the same time and in most places on the planet things don’t work out as well". The scientific work at the end of the expedition is far from being finished. All results of the fisheries biological survey are fed into a data base for long-term studies on a large scale. CAML is going to finance a workshop in Barcelona that will work on the synthesis of all major results of the different working groups. Only after presenting our scientific results in journals, data bases and at conferences to an audience of experts from around the world can we consider this project completed. The results will form the basis of future and ongoing studies. This is the way science works.

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