After years of debate and discussion, nations have agreed on a High Seas Treaty to protect marine biodiversity and ensure oversight of international waters. It is being hailed by researchers as an important step for conservation that encourages international research collaboration without hampering science, reports Nature.
“We’re excited,” says Kristina Gjerde, a marine law researcher at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. “This long-awaited agreement contains many of the vital things we need to protect our oceans.”
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The final text of the agreement was finalized at the end of a two-week meeting in New York City by delegates to the United Nations Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). The last session, which lasted 38 uninterrupted hours, ended well on schedule on March 4. “That was excessive even by UN standards,” says Marcel Jaspars, a chemist and marine biologist at the University of Aberdeen, UK, who was involved in the process as an adviser to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). “It was madness. The delegates were so tired.”
Countries have jurisdiction over the waters that extend 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from their shores. In addition, there is the high seas, which make up about two-thirds of the global ocean, or more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. Some activities in these waters are regulated by mechanisms such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, including whaling, shipping and seabed extraction. Overall, however, the high seas have long been considered the “wild west” of the oceans, with few rules and regulations, particularly to protect biodiversity.
It has long been recognized that given the tremendous importance of the high seas to marine life and global climate, a treaty was needed to fill these gaps. The idea was first taken up 20 years ago. In 2017, the UN decided to formally convene an intergovernmental conference to draft a treaty, but delegates met without achieving their goal in subsequent years. Although countries finally succeeded on March 4, they ran out of time to formally accept the treaty. That will happen at a specially convened BBNJ meeting in the near future.
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Source: Nature
