Marine and other scientists are urging global leaders to fast-track an international treaty to protect the world’s high seas, the vast areas of ocean that fall outside national borders, and are increasingly at risk of environmental damage.
A group of marine experts and scientists have signed an open letter urging support for a global ocean treaty to protect the high seas before UN negotiations on the issue, which began in 2017, end this year.
The treaty would protect the world’s deepest oceans that are home to vast areas of underexplored marine life and habitats, and which are increasingly under threat from human encroachment. Pollution, overfishing, warming of the oceans due to climate change and deep sea mining and oil drilling are among some of the threats.
Though these high seas cover two-thirds of the planet’s surface, and produce half of the Earth’s oxygen, only 1 percent are protected.
Nichola Clark, an officer with Pew Charitable Trusts and a co-signatory to the letter, wants to see more protections for the world’s oceans put in place as part of the draft global ocean treaty.
“For most of the high seas, there's not a legal mechanism that governments can use to establish marine protected areas, which is really problematic,” said Clark in an interview ahead of World Oceans Day on June 8.
Tensions on the high seas
The absence of a legal mechanism is proving contentious in the negotiations for a treaty.
Some countries want marine protected areas (MAPs), those of ecological and biodiverse significance, to be identified before legal protections are introduced.
Deep oceans, like space, are shared internationally and so without clearly defined international laws on how to govern the high seas, ensuring biodiversity is preserved and marine areas protected could prove difficult.
David Azoulay, an environmental lawyer and director of the health and climate programme at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said the negotiations are complex because of the differing interests of government and industry.
Any global legally binding rules that would apply to the high seas would, for example, also have to consider deep-sea mining, added Azoulay, which currently occurs outside any government jurisdiction.
“The stakes are high,” Azoulay said. “Having to enforce new rules is complex because it’s also quite technical and especially if there is little public pressure or oversight of the negotiation process.”
Plastics trigger talks
Global discussions on the health of oceans have been going on for more than a decade, sometimes lagging behind other climate issues that have gained more public awareness.
Azoulay points to pollution from plastics and how talks on the health of the world’s oceans helped trigger interest and outrage. Not only did it lead to widespread advertising campaigns, it translated into action, such as recycling.
The EU has signalled the importance of the health of the world’s oceans, too, announcing it wants to improve seawater quality by reducing plastic litter by half and reducing microplastics by 2030.
If oceans are to recover from the damage caused by plastic waste, up to 30 percent will need protection by 2030, according to Greenpeace.
Even with a strong consensus on the need for a global ocean treaty, there are still hurdles to overcome if the negotiators are to reach their most ambitious targets and the treaty is adopted.
