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Will the High Seas Treaty Actually Change Anything? · How To Protect The Ocean

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  The hardest part of the High Seas Treaty was never reaching the
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  agreement, although that was difficult.
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  It's what happens after the headlines disappear.
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  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update.
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  to Friday, hit that follow button right now so you don't miss tomorrow's episode.
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  Today, we're asking the question many people in ocean
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  conservation are quietly thinking.
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  Will the High Seas Treaty actually change anything?
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  And to be honest, we're not quietly thinking it.
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  We are saying it out loud, top of our lungs.
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  Will this change anything?
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  Will this massive thing that requires numerous countries to agree
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  on and be able to agree on every little decision that's made, will
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  they actually go ahead with it?
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  Will it change anything?
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  Because history shows us something important.
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  Big environmental announcements do not automatically create
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  big environmental incomes.
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  The Paris Climate Accord was a huge thing, historic even.
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  But then major countries are pulling out and you're like, "Oh,
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  wow. Well, hold on a second."
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  We have two countries, or one or two countries who are like the biggest
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  emitters, and they're not part of this.
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  They keep pulling, like one keeps pulling out and coming back in,
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  pulling out and coming back in.
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  It's really confusing, but it makes it difficult to do any kind
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  of conservation in the future.
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  Now let's be honest, like the High Seas Treaty was historic, is historic.
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  And for the first time, the world has a framework to better protect
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  biodiversity beyond the national borders.
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  That matters because the high seas cover nearly half of the planet.
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  And until now, there hasn't been any comprehensive mechanism for
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  establishing marine protected areas across those waters.
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  When the final gavel went down to say that the high seas went off, it's on
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  YouTube if you ever wanna watch it.
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  The person who had the gavel was in tears of happiness and just
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  drained probably from all the negotiations over the number of years.
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  Some people did not see it happen within their lifetime
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  and a lot of us saw it.
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  That's a huge historic victory for the ocean.
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  And so, making sure that we're able to have these marine protected areas, that
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  treaty changes it, at least structurally.
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  It creates a legal pathway for coordinated conservation.
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  We haven't seen that before.
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  Like we've had coordinated conservation, especially for MPAs
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  between two countries, maybe even three.
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  But it hasn't happened a lot, and within those national boundaries.
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  But like this is a major, major achievement to be able to do that
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  from a legal structure to put MPAs in, marine protected areas, especially
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  considering how difficult international negotiations can actually be.
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  But treaties are all starting points.
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  Like it may not be perfect.
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  They're not the finishing lines.
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  But you know, there's something that we can really start and we
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  can really sink our teeth into.
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  There's also legitimate skepticism, though, on how this is gonna work because
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  conservation has a history of ambitious targets without sufficient implementation.
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  We're looking at 30 by 30, coming up at the end of this decade - where
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  countries are supposed to protect 30% of land, 30% of oceans and water
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  resources in their country by 2030.
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  Well, it's kinda coming to a point where funding agencies and countries
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  are really focused on that 30% number.
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  But I was just-- had a conversation with a buddy, Angelo, the other day
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  and saying, "Hey, you know what? What about coastal conservation? Will
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  that really play a role?" Because the MPA systems are gonna be smaller.
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  Now, you might have a network of MPAs within that coastal system, but each MPA
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  individually will be very small and may not contribute much to the 30% number.
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  Like, are we looking at that number?
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  Are we looking at area?
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  Are we looking at quality of that area?
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  There's a lot of stuff that goes on.
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  That 30 by 30 policy that the world has taken on through the Convention
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  of Biological Diversity, that has become, not necessarily a farce,
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  but a little bit of an exaggeration of what we really wanna do.
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  Now, of course, it has been successful 'cause we went from 1% global
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  protection to 10% global protection.
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  We're far off from the 30%, but I have a feeling that will ramp
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  up as we get closer to the 2030.
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  But still, at least we've increased it by order of magnitude in
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  terms of the area of protection.
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  And any area of protection at this point is better than nothing.
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  Countries announce protections all the time, but enforcement really remains weak.
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  Funding falls short, political priorities shift, as we see in the US all the time.
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  And of course, like, the industries continue operating largely
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  unchanged because they're not getting enforced on the topic.
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  That's a concern here too, especially with this high seas treaty.
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  Will governments actually invest in monitoring and enforcement?
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  Will they?
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  Will marine protected areas become meaningful restrictions
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  or symbolic boundaries?
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  It's gonna be really difficult to find out who's in charge of that enforcement, if
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  there's a high seas marine protected area.
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  So will countries cooperate when economic interests are threatened?
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  That's gonna be something to look forward to, to see what happens.
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  Those questions still don't have clear answers.
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  And this is why many marine conservation leaders are emphasizing that we
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  need accountability, not just a celebration of announcing that there's
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  gonna be a marine protected area.
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  My interview tomorrow with Rebecca Hubbard and many others, they have repeatedly
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  stressed that ratification is critical, so the countries have to ratify high seas.
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  We have 89 so far.
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  We still need a lot more to get to our 190 or 195, however many countries there are.
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  Countries must formally adopt the treaty before it can fully move forward.
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  And then implementation becomes a major next hurdle.
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  We still need people to ratify, still need countries to ratify.
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  And to be honest, storytelling comes through on this.
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  If you want countries to ratify, you have to speak to your members of
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  representation, of your government, if you're in a democratic society.
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  That's the whole purpose of that.
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  So when you actually go and talk to your representative, you
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  have to come with a story.
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  You gotta say why this is important to you, why it's important for Canada or for
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  the US or for the UK or for India or for Brazil or for Sri Lanka or for Bangladesh
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  or for Europe to say, "Hey We need to have these marine protected areas, and we
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  need to have them now, and this is why.
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  And you tell the story to that person so that you get them interested.
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  And if you're an organization that's working on the high seas and wants to
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  help out and wants to help tell those stories, you can hire the company that
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  I work for, that's also the sponsor for this episode, is Pisces Oceans.
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  I work for them.
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  I am the Oceans Communications Manager.
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  We work with a small team, but we also have a great list of associates that can
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  help and help your organization not only manage projects but tell the stories to
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  really drive the information home that we need marine protected areas in the
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  high seas, and that countries should be listening, and that companies that
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  are involved in industrial activity in the high seas should also be listening.
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  They should be following this.
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  And so if you wanna learn more about Pisces Oceans, you can
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  go to piscesoceans.ca, and you can find out more about us.
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  We'd happy to talk to you.
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  And you can also DM me in my social links in the show notes.
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  So what should success actually look like when we talk about the high seas.
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  It probably wouldn't happen overnight.
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  It's gonna take a long time for this to happen.
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  But success would probably mean measurable biodiversity recovery, like
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  actual measurable, scientific monitoring happening, stronger international
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  cooperation, reduced illegal fishing, meaningful protected areas, better
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  monitoring transparency, and long-term political commitment beyond the
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  political term of a particular party.
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  We're talking long term, where it is bipartisan.
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  People are on whatever side of the aisle or whatever political party you're a part
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  of, you are actually going to support this long term, not just when you're in
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  and when you're out, somebody else says, "No, we're not gonna be doing this."
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  We don't want that to happen.
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  That flip-flopping cannot happen anymore.
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  And it happens a lot, not just in the US.
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  It happens a lot.
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  And maybe most importantly, success would mean treating the high
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  seas as a shared responsibility instead of an unlimited resource.
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  That mindset shift actually matters because for centuries, much of the ocean
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  has been governed around extraction first.
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  "Let's just use this resource as much as possible, and we don't have to care
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  about the damage because we're probably not gonna have to worry about that." Now,
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  the world is beginning to ask whether protection should carry equal weight.
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  The High Seas Treaty talks about equality when we make these types of decisions.
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  That's a major philosophical change.
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  And the next decade may determine whether it becomes reality.
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  And that will be interesting to see, beyond 2030, what's gonna happen.
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  The High Seas Treaty is not a guaranteed victory for the ocean.
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  We know that for sure.
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  But it is an opportunity for us to make some changes.
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  What happens next depends on whether countries are willing to turn promises
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  into measurable action, because protection only works when it becomes real, and we
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  see people actually working to implement and enforce these marine protected
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  areas, making sure that genetic material that is taken from the ocean is equally
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  shared among countries that can take that out, has the technology, and also
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  can't take that out, and is shared.
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  This is where we have to work together.
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  This is a huge shift in the way the world works, but we're at a
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  precipice where things need to change.
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  We've seen that politically happen and being said, it's starting to happen
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  with economics and trade, and now it's gonna have to happen within the ocean
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  as well and managing these types of resources, which is gonna be a lot
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  more difficult because there's so many countries that depend on ocean resources.
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  And so that's gonna be interesting to see what happens in the future.
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  But look, that's the episode for today.
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  We are gonna be talking to Rebecca Hubbard tomorrow who's the
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  director of the High Seas Alliance.
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  We're gonna find out more.
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  I hope that I've prepped you enough in these four solo episodes beforehand,
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  Monday to Thursday, so that you can understand our conversation.
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  That's really what I do for these, is just kinda talk about individual things
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  that we talk about in the interview episode, so you get a better knowledge.
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  You're prepared now.
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  You've heard some of this stuff, and you get to hear Rebecca's take
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  on it, and I think it's wonderful.
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  Rebecca's an amazing person.
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  You're gonna love hearing her voice.
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  You're gonna love hearing what she has to say.
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  The High Seas Alliance has been playing a huge role in the negotiations for the High
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  Seas Treaty as well as now beyond the High Seas Treaty after it's being ratified.
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  So this is huge.
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  I can't wait to see what happens next.
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  And of course, you can always contact me in my socials.
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  If you go to the show notes, you can just DM me on Instagram, TikTok.
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  If you wanna hit me up on speakupforblue.com/feedback,
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  you can do that as well.
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  There's so many ways of doing so.
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  But 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