There have never been limits to the misuse of resources on the international waters, where large ships equipped with ever more efficient technologies have taken quantities of fish resources incompatible with their reproduction. Thanks to a new treaty signed on March 5 in the UN, already marked as historic for the protection of the oceans, it will also be possible to establish Marine Protected Areas on the high seas, safeguard zones where indiscriminate fishing and pollution will be prohibited.
However, it will take some time. The treaty will have to be ratified by a qualified number of states before it actually enters into force, but the road is traced. It’s finally good news for the protection of the ocean, as long as it’s done as soon as possible and well. The problem of overexploitation of oceanic species is serious. To put into perspective: according to Living Planet, populations of rays and sharks have decreased by 71% in the last 50 years due to an 18-fold increase in fishing pressure.
It took 11 years of discussions and an additional four years of formal negotiations to reach an agreement that goes in the direction of implementing the 30×30 commitment made at the UN Conference on Biodiversity last December, in which States set themselves the goal to protect 30 percent of the planet’s surface and its living beings, including the seas, by the year 2030.
Protecting the oceans is necessary not just for guarding biodiversity. Half of the oxygen we breathe is produced by the sea and it is the ocean that absorbs half of the CO2 we emit into the atmosphere.
Finding an agreement at the UN was incredibly complex because resources in areas of the planet that are not subject to the jurisdiction of states are at stake, and are therefore common goods of humanity. On the one hand, there were the developing countries, without the means and technologies to access ocean resources, who did not want to be excluded. And on the other, the states that are already heavily exploiting them.
“A victory for multilateralism and for global efforts to counter the destructive trends that threaten the health of the oceans, today and for generations to come,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The agreement was welcomed by the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the European commissioner for the environment Virginijus Sinkevicius and the Italian minister for marin policies Nello Musumeci.
Laura Meller of Greenpeace was also excited. “It is a historic day for conservation and a sign that, in a divided world, the protection of nature and people can triumph over geopolitics.”
“What happens on the high seas will no longer be out of sight, out of mind. This treaty will enable the oversight and integration we need if the ocean is to continue to deliver the social, economic and environmental benefits humanity currently enjoys,” said Jessica Battle, Senior Global Ocean Governance and Policy Expert. “It will now be possible to examine the cumulative impacts on our ocean in a way that reflects the connection between the Blue Economy and the ecosystems that support it.”
It will also be an important tool for the Mediterranean “as it provides a strong legal instrument that we have lacked so far to effectively protect a large part of our sea and reduce the impact of growing industrial and productive activities,” added Giulia Prato, Sea Manager of the WWF Italy. “Now the Mediterranean countries will be able to present proposals for the establishment of Marine Protected Areas on the high seas.”
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