The UN will discuss the world’s marine biodiversity this week

SeaLegacy: The Ocean Beyond National Jurisdiction and the United Nations Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Judgment

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Because it covers 70% of the Earth’s surface, the ocean is crucial in capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Recent scientific discoveries have found that marine ecosystems are far more efficient at sequestering and holding carbon than land-based plants or trees, trapping and storing carbon for thousands, if not millions, of years. The carbon captured by these ecosystems is often referred to as “blue carbon.”

The World Economic Forum believes that global demand for carbon credits will increase 15-fold by 2020 and be worth up to $50 billion by the end of the century.

The goal of the U.N. meetings is to agree on ways to preserve and restore the planet’s marine environments. The talks are formally called the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, and they were suspended without an agreement last fall.

There are a number of problems in international waters, one of which is that they are mostly governed by a fragmented patchwork of global agreements.

Boris Worm said the ocean is the life support system of our planet. “For the longest time, we did not feel we had a large impact on the high seas. Expansion of deep sea fishing and mining has caused the notion to change.

The treaty allows for the establishment and management of marine protected areas, which protect the ocean’s biodiversity. Deep sea mining and a pledge to share ocean resources are just two of the things it covers.

Now that long-awaited treaty text has been finalized, Nichola Clark, an oceans expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts who observed the talks in New York, said, “This is a once in a generation opportunity to protect the oceans — a major win for biodiversity.”

Agreeing on the treaty text was a crucial step, but not the last step. “While there are still major issues in the text, it is a workable Treaty that is a starting point for protecting 30% of the world’s oceans,” said the environmental-activism organization Greenpeace in a statement. “Now the hard work of ratification and protecting the oceans begins.”

A successful treaty “will help us achieve the goal of conserving or protecting at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030,” Monica Medina, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, told CNN by email.

Jessica Battle is an expert on oceans governance at the World Wide Fund for Nature.

“I believe that this treaty is like a second chance for the ocean,” said Gladys Martínez, the executive director of AIDA, a group focused on protecting the environment, primarily in Latin America and has been involved with treaty discussions.

Gemma Nelson, a lawyer from Samoa who is currently an Ocean Voices fellow at the University of Edinburgh, said that small Pacific and Caribbean island countries were “especially vulnerable to global ocean issues,” such as pollution and climate change, which generally they did not cause nor have the resources to easily address.

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The traditional knowledge of local people and communities is important to protect both the ecological and the way of life of Indigenous groups.

With nearly half the planet’s surface covered by high seas, the talks are of great importance, said Gladys Martínez de Lemos, executive director of the nonprofit Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense focusing on environmental issues across Latin America.

The agreement was signed on Saturday evening after two weeks of negotiations at the United Nations headquarters in New York ended in a mammoth final session of more than 36 hours – but it has been two decades in the making.

“We praise countries for seeking compromises, putting aside differences and delivering a treaty that will let us protect the oceans, build our resilience to climate change and safeguard the lives and livelihoods of billions of people,” Greenpeace’s Meller said.

Countries will be permitted to profit from exploiting marine genetic resources, but they must channel a proportion of their profits into a global fund to protect the high seas. High-income countries involved in marine genetic research will be asked to contribute more to the fund.

“Currently, there are no comprehensive regulations for the protections of marine life in this area,” Liz Karan, oceans project director at the Pew Charitable Trusts, told CNN.

There are big gaps of habitat between the puzzle pieces. It is truly that bad out there,” Douglas McCauley, professor of ocean science at the University of California Santa Barbara, told CNN.

An updated high seas marine-protection treaty signed at the end of the first half of the 2019 season, and an update with environmental impact assessments

There were points during the negotiations where some worried that agreement would never happen, as conflicts threatened to derail talks. “It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride,” said Karan.

It wasn’t easy to nail down the processes for creating marine protected areas and ensure they were shared equally, as many developing countries don’t have the technology or know how to explore the high seas on their own.

An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The treaty was signed late Saturday.

For any activities on the high seas that are expected to have a substantial effect, the treaty also calls for environmental-impact assessments. Nations will review these assessments and be in charge of approving the activities. According to Cymie Payne, an environmental-governance specialist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, most scientific projects probably won’t require such evaluations. The assessment will provide a central source of information about ocean activities.

Many marine species — including dolphins, whales, sea turtles and many fish — make long annual migrations, crossing national borders and the high seas. Efforts to protect them and human communities that rely on fishing or tourism related to marine life have been hampered by a confusing patchwork of laws.

“This treaty will help to knit together the different regional treaties to be able to address threats and concerns across species’ ranges,” said Battle.

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Gladys said that protecting the environment helps coastal and biodiversity economies.

“Governments have taken an important step that strengthens the legal protection of two-thirds of the ocean and with it marine biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal communities,” she said.

Commercial fishing operations span more than half the world’s ocean and have been detrimental to species and their habitats. More than a third of sharks, rays, and chimaera are at risk of extinction due to the over fishing of these fish.

Elizabeth Mendenhall is a marine affairs professor at the University of Rhode Island who researches ocean governance.

“So areas get overburdened, overexploited, they get more than they can handle because there isn’t like a coordinated, holistic perspective,” she added.

There are no international bodies committed to preserving biological diversity in regions outside territorial seas or ground rules on access to genetic resources found in international waters, Mendenhall said.

The treaty creates various groups to monitor regulations and respond to changing conditions. It also emphasizes capacity building for research in lower-income nations, to ensure equitable access to science and to benefits from ocean discoveries.

One of the major points of tension in the talks was to ensure that the resources are shared in an equitable way.

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Some scientists had worried that the treaty might require new permits for research projects exploring the high seas, adding bureaucracy to studies that can already be hard to get off the ground. This did not happen. Jaspars says research cruises will have to make a public notification about their location and times. This will give researchers from low- and middle-income countries the opportunity to join the cruise.

The environmental impact assessments on commercial activities in the ocean are part of the fourth component of the agreement. These evaluations will also consider cumulative impact, or combined and incremental impacts, resulting from different activities.

The treaty is crucial for the waters outside national jurisdiction as well as for regions and countries within it, claimed the NRDC’s Speer.

Billions of people depend on the ocean for their basic needs, such as food, income, and culture, as well as economically, she said.

Over 40 years ago, the last international treaty on ocean protection was signed by the United Nations, and the U.S. has yet to ratify it.

“As a Caribbean scientist, I am extremely pleased” with this aspect of the treaty, says Judith Gobin, a marine ecologist at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, in Trinidad and Tobago. For too long we have been watching research ships taking our marine organisms away. She says that they will be involved.

The agreement calls for scientists to notify a clearing house as to where genetic data and biological samples from marine life are to be published, no later than a year after the collection. There will be an identifier attached to any patents or sales of marketed products that come from original research. Jaspars says that most of the logistical burden of benefit sharing will be put on those developing commercial applications.

The agreement has an opportunity for researchers and funders to use everything that is available to preserve the health of the seas.

There is the possible use of telepresence, in which scientists can take part in research cruises remotely. Marine scientists could collect samples in the Pacific Ocean, if they wanted to, using the guidance of colleagues elsewhere. The knowledge gained from such collaborations could lead to the commercialization of new products.

The international community, supported by the research community, has a responsibility to fix the deficiencies that have arisen from the treaty.

The treaty will not end current offshore environmental violators. Farming waste ends up in rivers and coastal waters. In the open ocean, it creates the formation of dead zones, vast areas devoid of life. Between 2008 and 2019, the number of these zones nearly doubled, from 400 to 700 (see go.nature.com/3mpigh1). The oceans are thought to hold around 200 million tonnes of plastic. Meanwhile, cruise ships legally discharge more than one billion tonnes of raw sewage into international waters every year.