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Can High Seas Protected Areas Actually Work? · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Creating a marine protected area thousands of kilometers offshore sounds impressive,
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  but how do you actually enforce it?
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  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update.
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  If you care about staying informed on the ocean every weekday, Monday to
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  you do not miss tomorrow's story.
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  Today, we are talking about one of the biggest questions
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  surrounding the High Seas Treaty, which we talked about yesterday.
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  Can marine protected areas actually work on the high seas?
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  Now, if you don't know, if you don't know me at all, if this is your first time or
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  you haven't listened to me in a while, I haven't talked a lot about my background.
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  I do have a background as I did a master's in marine protected areas.
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  I was on the board for an organization called Pacific Marine
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  Research Analysis, PACMARA.
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  And we talked a lot about marine protected areas, looking at data, matching science
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  with policy, all that kinda stuff.
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  I've been involved in a lot of marine protected areas, not necessarily marine
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  protected area, like processes and stuff like that, but I know quite
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  a bit about marine protected areas.
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  Definitely not an expert, but I know quite a bit.
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  And so this actually matters to me this topic a lot, a lot more
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  than a lot of the other ones because I have a bit of a background in it.
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  And knowing that marine protected areas, even in exclusive economic zones
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  where there's national jurisdiction, how hard it is to designate,
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  imagine doing it in an area where there's no national jurisdiction.
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  It's the high seas, and now with the High Seas Treaty, we are going to be
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  putting in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth marine protected area ever.
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  So this is historic, but it's also... it has a lot of questions.
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  Because, like, when you're talking about the high seas, you can
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  announce it, that's one thing, but enforcing it is completely different.
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  A marine protected area, or MPA, is essentially an ocean zone where
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  human activity is restricted to protect ecosystems and biodiversity.
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  So some MPAs limit fishing, some restrict, like mining
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  or any kind of activity.
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  Sometimes they reduce shipping impacts or protect critical habitats.
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  Near coastlines is difficult enough, obviously.
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  But now imagine doing it, trying to monitor something in the
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  middle of the Pacific Ocean.
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  An area so large it takes days to reach by boat.
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  You're not gonna have a coast guard patrolling there all the time.
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  And this is the challenge facing high seas conservation.
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  And historically, it has been one of the biggest weaknesses in ocean protection.
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  We just didn't know how to enforce the high seas because there's no jurisdiction.
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  A country can declare protection, but if nobody monitors the area,
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  illegal activity can still happen.
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  That even happens within national boundaries like
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  the exclusive economic zone.
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  If you don't have the resources to put together, an enforcement package
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  where you have coast guard going out and actually looking at these
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  places, satellites and planes and all this kind of stuff, there's really
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  no point in protecting it at all.
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  It just becomes a paper park.
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  And that's why scientists and advocates increasingly focus on the difference
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  between paper parks and real protection.
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  A paper park looks great, you know, politically.
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  It's great to announce, but real protection changes
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  the outcomes in the water.
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  So if you're protecting for biodiversity, and you don't measure that, and you
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  don't enforce, like, people coming in on their boats and fishing all the...
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  whatever they can find, then leaving or destroying a habitat because they're
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  trawling and they're just digging up the bottom trying to catch as
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  many fish as possible, then you're not really gonna protect anything.
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  If you are trying to increase abundance and biomass of a specific
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  fisheries to protect fisheries, we can't allow fisheries to happen
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  in the marine protected area.
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  But how do you enforce that?
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  So enforcement may be the most underrated part of conversation.
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  We don't talk about it a lot.
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  What we always mention as conservationists and scientists, we're like, "Oh, yeah,
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  well, it's not enforced, so it really doesn't really matter." Studies have
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  repeatedly shown that protected areas only succeed when rules are actually
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  followed, and that doesn't happen often.
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  A lot of people try and get away with a lot of stuff.
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  That means, you know, you need staffing, you need funding, you have monitoring
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  systems, you need political support for sure, and consequences for violations.
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  This becomes incredibly difficult offshore.
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  Like recently, there was a video of a man throwing a rock at a critically endangered
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  species off the coast of Hawaii
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  he threw a rock at a Hawaiian monk seal.
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  Now, these monk seals, like I said, they're on the endangered species list.
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  They are protected.
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  If you harass it or you hurt it in any kind of way, you can be
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  charged, and this guy was charged.
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  And, you know, somebody videoed it, and you probably know the story.
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  It went viral over the last week and weekend.
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  And he's being charged.
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  He got arrested.
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  He's being charged for it, and he also got beaten up by the locals.
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  That's a cultural thing.
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  You don't mess with things that are culturally significant.
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  You don't mess with animals anyway like that, but this guy got it a lot.
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  But there was somebody there to video it.
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  If not, he could've denied that ever even happened.
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  Nothing happened to the seal.
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  Nothing that we saw anyway.
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  It looked like the rock missed it, thank God.
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  But he could've just denied it, or he paid a little fine, and nobody would've
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  made a big deal about it at all.
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  He probably never would've gotten arrested.
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  He may have still gotten beat up, but even then, nobody was there...
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  if nobody was there to record it.
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  Now, imagine somebody doing that on a ship out in the middle of the sea,
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  and they threw something at an animal.
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  Well, nobody would ever know because you can't be there to video all that, right?
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  So if you can't do that, if you can't give consequences to people for violations,
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  then it becomes really difficult, especially when you're looking offshore.
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  But of course, the technology is changing the equation.
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  Now, we don't have people taking pictures out there, but satellite
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  monitoring systems can now track vessel movement across huge ocean regions.
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  AIS systems, which is like the GPS on the ships that track the ships,
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  especially for shipping, but even for fisheries that do have it or have it
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  turned on, they are designated to improve ship safety, but also help
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  identify suspicious fishing behavior.
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  They will be able to tell if a boat is in a marine protected
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  area, and if it's slowed down to show that it's actually fishing.
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  So organizations like Global Fishing Watch have helped expose
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  activity that previously went unseen because they have all this data.
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  That matters because visibility creates the accountability, and
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  accountability creates that pressure on people who are not doing great things.
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  But there are still major gaps.
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  Not all vessels keep tracking systems active.
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  There was a study that came out saying that 75% of the fishing fleets don't
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  actually put on their tracking system, so we don't know where they're
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  fishing or how much they're fishing.
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  Like, imagine that.
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  You have, like, this great technology, but nobody's using it
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  and nobody's being enforced to use it.
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  So some governments have actually limited enforcement capacity, so
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  they can't get out there to do it.
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  And geopolitical tensions can complicate compliance.
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  So the challenge is not just scientific, like we know the science.
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  It's actually a political and economic one as well.
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  It's an important part of the system.
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  We know the science.
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  We know overfishing is bad.
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  We know that it happens all over the world.
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  That political and economic have to work together with the scientific.
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  If it's science informed, that's one thing.
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  But if you don't have the political will, just like we're not getting it
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  in the US right now, which we typically would get it on a lot of things.
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  It looks like they're trying to just strip away any kind of environmental
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  law that's ever been activated just so they can do some pretty nefarious
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  things with fossil fuels and so forth and cut up some pretty bad landscapes.
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  And so, that is obviously a problem if you don't have that political
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  will and of course you don't have that economic will to do so.
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  So you don't want to see that happening So what happens next?
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  The High Seas Treaty does create a possibility for more large-scale
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  ocean protection, but success depends on whether countries
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  commit resources to implementation.
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  There's one thing to commit to say, "Hey, this High Seas Treaty is
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  really great," and then of course, to ratify it, that's another thing.
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  But the actual thing to implement it and to enforce it, that's a huge thing.
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  Because that's what success really depends on.
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  It includes monitoring technology, scientific research,
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  enforcement cooperation, transparency, long-term funding.
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  All these things matter.
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  And this is where, like, the public attention matters
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  more than people realize.
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  Because governments often respond to sustained pressure.
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  And if we don't provide that pressure, then they're just gonna ignore it.
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  When ocean issues disappear from the public conversation, the urgency fails.
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  The government doesn't have to do anything.
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  But when citizens and scientists and journalists and advocates keep
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  paying attention, accountability becomes harder to ignore.
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  The next decade could define whether high seas protection becomes
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  transformative or even symbolic.
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  Marine protected areas only work when protection is measurable,
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  enforceable, and real.
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  The future of the high seas may depend less on drawing lines on a
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  map and more on whether the world is willing, and I'm gonna say that
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  again, is willing to enforce them.
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  I'm gonna say that one more time.
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  The future of the high seas depends less on drawing lines
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  on maps and more on whether the world is willing to enforce them.
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  That's what it really comes down to.
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  As are we willing?
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  After this high seas treaty, 20 years, two decades trying to put this
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  together, finally agreeing to it, all the countries agreed to it, then
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  you get 89 at this point to ratify it and more coming each and every day.
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  And then all of a sudden, you're not willing to enforce them, you're just
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  signing this paper and saying, "Hey, yeah, we're willing to do this, but we're not
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  actually gonna do anything." No, that's not happening, 'cause once you ratify,
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  you actually have to put laws in place to say, "Hey, we now have a high seas
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  policy in this country," whether it's Canada, United States, anywhere else.
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  That's an important, important thing to remember.
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  So I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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  Do you think countries are actually going to follow this?
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  Is it gonna take a while?
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  Is it gonna take 10 years, 15 years, 20 years?
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  Are people gonna follow it at all?
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  I'm sure there's some countries that are gonna be, like, off, but
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  I would love to hear what you think.
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  Hit me up on my socials.
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  You can just go in the show notes.
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  You can check that out.
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  And of course, I'm always willing to chat on any social,
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  LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram.
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  Please let me know how you feel about these episodes.
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  If you have questions or comments, you wanna have a conversation.
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  This is just the start.
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  We wanna continue having those conversations, whether
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  you agree with me or not.
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  I'm not mad at anybody.
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  Just come with me.
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  Don't be rude.
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  Just be polite.
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  We'll have conversations.
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  It'll be a lot of fun, 'cause this is what we're gonna do.
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  We talk about the ocean.
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  Of course, don't forget, if you want to hear more about the ocean and you
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  wanna hear more about how to protect it, especially about the high seas,
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  this week is the week to follow this podcast by hitting that follow button
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  right now on your favorite podcast app.
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  And thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.