UNITED NATIONS, United States, June 16 (AFP): The world's first international treaty to protect the high seas is scheduled to be adopted Monday at the United Nations, a huge step for the "historic" environmental accord after more than 15 years of discussions.
"It's a historic moment," Minna Epps, ocean team director of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, told AFP. But "it's appalling that it took so long."
The landmark treaty would establish a legal framework to extend swathes of environmental protections to international waters, which make up more than 60 percent of the world's oceans.
Following four years of official negotiations, UN member states finally agreed on the text for the treaty in March after a flurry of final, marathon talks.
Since then, the text has been pored over by the UN's lawyers and translators to make sure it matches in the body's six official languages.
But the journey won't be over Monday. After the UN adopts the treaty, it will need to be ratified by at least 60 member states to go into effect.
"Humanity counts on the ocean. But can the ocean count on us?" UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked on Twitter recently, calling for more maritime protections.
Scientists have increasingly come to realize 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.
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.
The result is that they've been long ignored in many environmental fights, as the spotlight has been on coastal areas.
"Marine reserves and impact studies -
A key tool in the treaty will be the ability to create protected marine areas in international waters.
Currently, about one percent of the high seas are protected by any sort of conservation measures.
That's a drop in the bucket for what's required to achieve goals to set aside for protection 30 percent of the world's oceans and lands by 2030, as agreed by world governments in a separate historic accord reached in Montreal in December.
