Conserving Ocean Ecosystems
In a historical accord, the United Nations has for the first time agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas. Building on efforts that began in 2004, the ‘High Seas Treaty’ will place 30% of the world’s oceans into protected areas, put more money into marine conservation, and restrict the access to and use of marine genetic resources. Some experts are already hailing the new Treaty as a significant milestone. Nichola Clark, an oceans expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts, has labeled the agreement a “once in a generation opportunity to protect the oceans – (and) a major win for biodiversity.”
The treaty provides the legal framework for countries to create marine protected areas, helping to preserve wide swaths of the high seas, which cover nearly 50% of the planet’s surface. Until now, weak regulation and oversight left this area of ocean vulnerable to overfishing and pollution. Future implementation of the treaty will include environmental assessments to evaluate the potential damage of commercial activities in the high seas. Furthermore, this agreement sets the stage for developing countries to equitably benefit from newly discovered “marine genetic resources." However, it has yet to put any protected areas into place. Countries will need to finalize the language of the treaty prior to its formal adoption. Approximately 60 countries will need to ratify the treaty before it can go into force, and the hope is to fast-track this treaty in the way that the Paris climate agreement’s ratification was fast-tracked back in 2016.
The passage of the High Seas Treaty represents the culmination of a growing interest in the world’s largest ecosystem, as stakeholders have begun to recognize the interconnectedness of the ocean and climate. The ocean stabilizes the climate, mainly by transporting warm water from the equator toward the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics. In this way, ocean currents actually regulate the global climate, counteracting the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth's surface.
Indeed, the primacy of the ocean within our economic ecosystem cannot be overstated. It covers 71% of the planet’s surface and is fundamental for all life on Earth. It supports entire economies and a spectrum of ecosystem services that have an estimated annual value of USD 300 billion. More than 350 million jobs are connected to the ocean’s marine and coastal biodiversity, providing livelihoods for 3 billion people. This blue economy produces 50% of the oxygen we breathe, absorbs C02, regulates the weather, and provides food.
Ocean conservation has come a long way since the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) came into force in 1982. At that time, marine biodiversity was not as well-understood as it is today and was not addressed or even mentioned due to implementation problems. Since that time, 168 nations have agreed to implement the UNCLOS. The renewed focus on this topic, including the formation of a new body to manage conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas, strongly echoes the significant deal announced at the United Nations 2022 Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal to protect 30% of Earth’s land and water ecosystems by 2030. According to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, “[t]he Treaty of the High Seas is vital for achieving ocean-related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.”
The growing awareness of the ocean’s importance, as represented by the adoption of the High Seas Treaty, is also reflected in the increased implementation of existing international instruments to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. According to the United Nations, which monitors specific indicators related to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the average degree of implementation of international instruments to combat IIU fishing has risen to 4 out of 5 in 2022, up from 3 out of 5 in 2018. Thus, countries have made progress, with close to 75% scoring high in their degree of implementation of relevant international instruments in 2022 compared with 70% in 2018.
More work, however, is urgently needed. The planet’s largest ecosystem continues to be endangered by overfishing, ocean acidification, eutrophication, and plastic pollution. Currently, just 8% of the oceans are protected and a third of fish stocks are overexploited. The protection of 30% of the oceans would not only help to preserve fish stocks, but would also promote the resilience of the blue economy and the entire planet. The High Seas Treaty represents significant progress toward the creation of a workable legal framework to protect vital portions of Earth’s biodiversity with the potential to spur even further progress. Let’s work together to achieve its swift ratification and bend the arc of human influence in favor of millions of threatened species.