30 Aug 2022
Failure in efforts to create global ocean treaty A fifth effort to pass a global agreement to protect the world’s oceans and marine life has failed. Numerous news outlets, including the BBC, reported that talks to pass the UN High Seas Treaty had been ongoing for two weeks in New York, but governments could not agree […]
16 Aug 2022
UN member states will gather in New York next week to hammer out a long-awaited treaty that, if agreed, will govern the planet’s last, lawless wilderness: the high seas. Two hundred nautical miles beyond the territorial waters and jurisdiction of nations, the high seas have been treated “recklessly”, according to environmental groups. Warning that the […]
22 Mar 2022
The United Nations failed to finalise a landmark treaty to preserve the biodiversity of the high seas – the 60% of the ocean beyond any nation’s jurisdiction. Observers, though, expect an agreement to be reached by year’s end as pressure builds to protect marine life from the growing impacts of climate change, overfishing and pollution, reports Bloomberg. The two-week meeting […]
15 Feb 2022
The Prime Minister has announced that the UK will be joining the High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity beyond National Jurisdiction. The PM gave a video message at the One Ocean Summit, held in France from 9 to 11 February 2022. The UK joined the 27 EU Member States, Australia, Egypt, Norway and others in committing […]
13 Jul 2019
On June 5, Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) brought together over a hundred delegates to discuss how to secure an ambitious global deal to protect nature in the high seas. Held in the historic Navy Board Rooms in Somerset House, the event fell between the second and third BBNJ (Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction) negotiations at the […]
07 Jul 2019
IUCN Briefing on Deep Sea Mining https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/deep-sea-mining The National Oceanography Centre has produced a report outlining the impacts of deep sea mining Eco-Magazine ‘A new study shows that the impacts of seabed mining on deep-sea ecosystems can persist for decades. Scientists at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) revisited a site exposed to simulated deep-sea mining […]
09 Apr 2019
Two possible networks of MPAs were presented to delegates negotiating the first every high seas conservation treaty at the UN last week. The maps, generated using biological and oceanographic data and the Marxan programme, showed potential reserves covering 30% or 50% of the high seas. The options presented were those the researchers thought offered the […]
08 Oct 2018
The Arctic region is warming at almost three times the global average rate, causing a change in the size and distribution of fish stocks. As a result, the Arctic high seas may become more attractive for commercial fisheries in the medium to long term. However, until now, most of the Arctic high seas were not […]
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