Finally, a High Seas Treaty to Protect the World’s Oceans

Source: Finally, a High Seas Treaty to Protect the World’s Oceans

A new U.N. agreement aims to bring order and conservation to what has—up to now—been an ocean of mismanagement and neglect.

More than 60 percent of the ocean is a near lawless realm where holes in the international regulatory “system” are large enough to sail through. But in early March, delegates at the United Nations headquarters in New York City emerged from a 36-hour marathon negotiation session to announce a new high seas treaty. First conceived nearly two decades ago, the treaty, once ratified, will address the jumble of rules that have failed to prevent the depletion of fisheries, the loss of unique and fragile habitats, and the decline of populations of whales, sea turtles, seabirds, and other marine wildlife within an area that covers nearly half of the planet. 

For years, negotiators couldn’t agree on the details, and up until the very last hours of the latest negotiations, it again looked as if members had reached an impasse. But in the end, they managed to agree upon language that bridged the gaps. “This is a moment of extraordinary consequence,” says Lisa Speer, director of the oceans division in NRDC’s Nature Program. “In bringing modern standards of conservation to the high seas, the U.N. treaty is not only a win for marine wildlife but for the billions of people for whom healthy oceans are vital to sustaining their nutrition, livelihoods, and cultural heritage.”