Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

UN resumes talks on ensuring marine biodiversi­ty

- Christina Larson

United Nations members gather Monday in New York to resume efforts to forge a long-awaited and elusive treaty to safeguard the world’s marine biodiversi­ty.

Nearly two-thirds of the ocean lies outside national boundaries on the high seas where fragmented and unevenly enforced rules seek to minimize human impacts.

The goal of the U.N. meetings, running through March 3, is to produce a unified agreement for the conservati­on and sustainabl­e use of those vast marine ecosystems. The talks, formally called the Intergover­nmental Conference on Marine Biodiversi­ty of Areas Beyond National Jurisdicti­on, resume negotiatio­ns suspended last fall without agreement on a final treaty.

“The ocean is the life support system of our planet,” said Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Canada’s Dalhousie University. “For the longest time, we did not feel we had a large impact on the high seas. But that notion has changed with expansion of deep sea fishing, mining, plastic pollution, climate change,” and other human disturbanc­es, he said.

The U.N. talks will focus on key questions, including: How should the boundaries of marine protected areas be drawn, and by whom? How should institutio­ns assess the environmen­tal impacts of commercial activities, such as shipping and mining? And who has the power to enforce rules?

“This is our largest global commons,” said Nichola Clark, an oceans expert who follows the negotiatio­ns for the nonpartisa­n Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. “We are optimistic that this upcoming round of negotiatio­ns will be the one to get a treaty over the finish line.”

The aim of the talks is not to actually designate marine protected areas, but to establish a mechanism for doing so. “The goal is to set up a new body that would accept submission­s for specific marine protected areas,” Clark said.

Marine biologist Simon Ingram at the University of Plymouth in England says there’s an urgent need for an accord. “It’s a really pressing time for this – especially when you have things like deepsea mining that could be a real threat to biodiversi­ty before we’ve even been able to survey and understand what lives on the ocean floor,” Ingram said.

Experts say that a global oceans treaty is needed to actually enforce the U.N. Biodiversi­ty Conference’s recent pledge to protect 30% of the planet’s oceans, as well as its land, for conservati­on.

“We need a legally binding framework that can enable countries to work together to actually achieve these goals they’ve agreed to,” said Jessica Battle, an expert on oceans governance at World Wide Fund for Nature

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and Internatio­nal Environmen­tal and Scientific Affairs Monica Medina said the treaty was a priority for the country. “This agreement seeks to create, for the first time, a coordinate­d approach to establishi­ng marine protected areas on the high seas,” she said. “It’s time to finish the job.”

Officials, environmen­talists and representa­tives of global industries that depend on the sea are also watching negotiatio­ns closely.

Gemma Nelson, a lawyer from Samoa who is currently an Ocean Voices fellow at the University of Edinburgh, said that small Pacific 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.

“Getting the traditiona­l knowledge of local people and communitie­s recognized as valid” is also essential to protect both ecosystems and the ways of life of Indigenous groups, she said.

 ?? NICK UT/AP FILE ?? Nearly two-thirds of the ocean lies outside national boundaries on the high seas where fragmented and unevenly enforced rules seek to minimize human impacts.
NICK UT/AP FILE Nearly two-thirds of the ocean lies outside national boundaries on the high seas where fragmented and unevenly enforced rules seek to minimize human impacts.

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