Source: United Nation
After nearly two decades of negotiations, the nations of the United Nations have agreed to protect the world’s oceans that lie beyond national borders. The UN’s “High Seas Treaty” aims to place 30% of the ocean in protected areas, funnel money into marine conservation and impose new rules for fishing at sea. The culmination of 38 hours of negotiations, at United Nations headquarters in New York, reached historic consensus on Saturday night, with nearly 200 countries agreeing to a legally binding treaty to protect marine hygiene in international waters.
About two-thirds of the planet’s oceans are considered “high seas,” and only 1% of these bodies of water are currently protected. The rest is essentially a vast expanse of lawless land with no restrictions on fishing, shipping or research, leaving marine life in much of the oceans exposed to threats such as overfishing, transportation, plastic pollution and climate change.
The “high sea” was established in the last international agreement on ocean protection—the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—signed four decades ago in 1982. The new treaty is the legal framework for establishing establishment of large marine protected areas (MPAs) to protect against the loss of wildlife and to share the genetic resources of the sea. But the parties will have to act quickly: The High Seas Treaty aims to bring 30% of international waters into protected areas by 2030—part of the commitment 30×30 of countries at the United Nations biodiversity conference in December.
There’s still a long way to go. First, the treaty must be ratified earlier at a later session. After that, it will only take effect when a sufficient number of countries have registered and legally passed it in their country. Finally, the parties to the agreement must begin to realistically consider how safeguards should be implemented and managed.
For now, however, ocean campaigners are celebrating. As Laura Meller, an ocean campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic, put it: “This is a historic day for conservation and a sign that in a divided world it is important to protect nature and people. can win geopolitics.”
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The new treaty on the high seas—dark blue—will aim to apply protections to two-thirds of the ocean
