The high seas urgently need protection

About half of the earth’s surface does not belong to anyone. They are areas that fall outside any national jurisdiction. Practices such as illegal and destructive fishing, discharges from ships or the dumping of waste can cause major damage. A pharmaceutical company could simply collect genetic material from plants or animals and use it in vaccines that are then sold at a high price.

More than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is made up of water, and two-thirds of it lies outside the exclusive economic zones (up to 200 nautical miles, more than 370 kilometers, off the coast) of countries. Nobody is responsible, and according to Marco Lambertini, international director of the World Wildlife Fund, that is the tragedy of the high seas – in Dutch usually translated as ‘the high seas’.

“Because the oceans belong to no one, they have been treated recklessly, with no one to be held accountable,” said Lambertini last week in New York, where the United Nations is negotiating a treaty to better protect oceans. “We need common governance for our oceans to ensure that no one’s waters become everyone’s waters — and everyone’s responsibility.”

It’s not that far yet. Better protection of the oceans has been discussed for over twenty years and the New York conference is the fifth round of negotiations in a short time. While progress has been made, talks are difficult. It is not certain that a final treaty text to supplement UNCLOS, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, will be in place this Friday, when the conference officially ends.

A healthy planet

Nevertheless, the need for an environmental and biodiversity agreement for the oceans is recognized by all parties. “A healthy planet cannot exist without healthy oceans,” said UN chief António Guterres in June in Lisbon. “Unfortunately, we have taken the ocean for granted and are now facing what I would call an ‘ocean emergency’. We have to turn the tide.”

Oceans play a fundamental role in Earth’s biodiversity. They are at the beginning of many food chains. The oceans are also the most important buffer against an even faster warming of the planet, because they contain most of the CO₂ that humanity produces and because they absorb much of the temperature rise.

But the inability of the global community to take good care of the oceans is losing their resilience, Guterres says. Since the start of the negotiations twenty years ago, added at least 120 sea creatures to the list of critically endangered species. The oceans are being fished out at a rapid pace and plastic bags have been found as far as the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on earth. 80 percent of all waste water is discharged into the sea untreated. The increasing concentration of CO₂ in oceans leads to water acidification with major consequences for corals and crustaceans, and heat waves in seawater can cause serious damage.

“This shows that it is time for action,” said Alex Oude Elferink, professor of international law of the sea at Utrecht University, in a video call. “But we’ve known that for a long time. It is about the sum of all those forms of impact.” It is mainly the European Union and the G77, a group of about a hundred developing countries and China, that want to speed up a treaty, says Oude Elferink. “Europe may not be a major power factor geopolitically, but when it comes to this kind of regulation it is an important international player. There is a good dialogue with the G77.”

Knowledge transfer

According to Oude Elferink, that does not mean that an agreement is within reach. “The EU really wants effective protection and therefore clear agreements about how to do this. Developing countries especially want to influence the extraction and use of genetic material from deep-sea organisms. They expect this material to be used in high-money applications. And because these genetic resources belong to everyone, that money shouldn’t just go to rich countries.”

But rich countries will never sign a treaty in which their companies are forced to transfer knowledge, Oude Elferink expects. This is particularly sensitive to the United States. “It is also one reason why the US is not a party to the Biodiversity Convention.”

There are also calls for stricter environmental regulations in deep-sea mining, and possibly a (temporary) moratorium. The seabed offers a wealth of ores, which in some places are almost literally up for grabs in so-called manganese nodules, nodules of iron and manganese oxide and a variety of other elements that have grown over millions of years.

Also read this story about involvement of the Dutch company Allseas in deep-sea mining

The Seabed Authority, part of the UNCLOS treaty, has designated dozens of places where a company has permission for deep-sea mining. Only recently has it been examined which areas deserve protected status. When it turned out that this also included mining areas, those boundaries were drawn differently. “That’s putting the cart before the horse,” says Oude Elferink. “You first have to indicate where you do not want any damage in any case, and only then do you look at where companies can get started. This new treaty can help with that.”

But is there enough knowledge to determine how harmful mining and fishing really are? Some states, including Russia and China, say no, but according to Oude Elferink it is not that bad, even if there are still gaps in that knowledge. “Consensus is growing about the need to give at least 30 percent of the oceans – and also of the land – protected status. According to some scientists, that should be even half. But even without that certainty there is something like the precautionary principle: if you are not sure whether there will be negative consequences, you should be extra careful when permitting or scaling up activities.”

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of August 26, 2022