An undated photo released this week by the Pew charitable trust shows a lone penguin on the ice in the Antarctic. The creation of a vast marine sanctuary in Antarctica’s ‘last ocean’ inched closer to reality as China finally backed the proposal, officials said, with Russia understood to be the only country now opposing it. The Ross sea is known as the ‘last ocean’ because it is considered the last intact marine ecosystem on Earth, mostly untouched by pollution, overfishing and invasive species

Photograph: John B Weller/AFP/Getty Images