Historic high seas treaty adopted at the UN

United Nations on Monday (June 19) adopted the world's first international treaty to protect the high seas. The adoption of the treaty represented the formation of a landmark accord designed to protect remote ecosystems that are vital to humanity.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the adoption of the treaty as a "historic achievement".

The treaty will establish a legal framework to extend environmental protection to international waters, which form more than 60 per cent of the world's oceans.

"The ocean is the lifeblood of our planet and today you have pumped new life and hope to give the ocean a fighting chance," he told delegates.

The treaty was a result of more than 15 years of discussions, including four years of formal negotiations. The UN member states agreed to text for the treaty in March.

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The text, since frozen, has been pored over by the UN's lawyers and translators to make sure it matches in the body's six official languages.

"Countries must now ratify it as quickly as possible to bring it into force so that we can protect our ocean, build our resilience to climate change and safeguard the lives and livelihoods of billions of people," said Rebecca Hubbard of the High Seas Alliance.

Scientists have increasingly come to realise the importance of oceans, which produce most of the oxygen we breathe, limit climate change by absorbing CO2, and host rich areas of biodiversity, often at the microscopic level.

Life-sustaining oceans

Oceans produce most of the oxygen we breathe. They limit climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide. Besides this, oceans are rich areas or biodiversity from the largest creatures to microscopic life forms.

But with so much of the world's oceans lying outside of individual countries' exclusive economic zones, and thus the jurisdiction of any single state, providing protection for the so-called "high seas" requires international cooperation.

A key tool in the treaty will be the ability to create protected marine areas in international waters.

Currently, only about one percent of the high seas are protected by any sort of conservation measures.

A crucial treaty

This treaty is seen to be crucial to countries protecting 30 per cent of global oceans and land by 2030. The world governments agreed on this in a separate historic accord that was reached in Montreal in December.

(With inputs from agencies)

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