It has been almost two decades in the making, but late on Saturday night in New York, after days of gruelling round-the-clock talks, UN member states finally agreed on a treaty to protect the high seas.

A full day after the deadline for talks had officially passed, the conference president, Rena Lee of Singapore, took to the floor of room 2 of the UN headquarters in New York and announced that the treaty had been agreed. At a later date, the delegates will meet for half a day to formally adopt the text. She made it clear the text would not be reopened.

“In Singapore, we like to go on learning journeys, and this has been the learning journey of a lifetime,” Lee said.

She thanked delegates for their dedication and commitment. “The success is also yours,” she told them.

She received cheers and a standing ovation from delegates in the room who had not left the conference hall for two days and worked through the night in order to get the deal done.

Pictured: The Intergovernmental Conference on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction congratulating its President, Ambassador Rena Lee, on the successful conclusion of the BBNJ treaty.

The historic treaty is crucial for enforcing the 30x30 pledge made by countries at the UN biodiversity conference in December, to protect a third of the sea (and land) by 2030. Without a treaty, this target would certainly fail, as until now no legal mechanism existed to set up MPAs [Marine Protected Areas] on the high seas.

Ocean ecosystems produce half the oxygen we breathe, represent 95% of the planet’s biosphere and soak up carbon dioxide, as the world’s largest carbon sink. Yet until now, fragmented and loosely enforced rules governing the high seas have rendered this area more susceptible than coastal waters to exploitation.

Veronica Frank, political adviser for Greenpeace, said that while the organisation hadn’t seen the latest text, “We are really happy. The world is so divided and to see multilateralism supported is so important.

“What’s really important is now to use this tool to develop this 30x30 target into force really quickly.” ...

Pictured: Activists from Greenpeace display a banner before the United Nations headquarters during ongoing negotiations at the UN on a treaty to protect the high seas in New York

“High seas marine protected areas can play a critical role in the impacts of climate change,” said Liz Karan, director of Pew’s ocean governance project. “Governments and civil society must now ensure the agreement is adopted and rapidly enters into force and is effectively implemented to safeguard high seas biodiversity.”

The High Ambition Coalition – which includes the EU, US, UK and China – were key players in brokering the deal, building coalitions instead of sowing division and showing willingness to compromise in the final days of talks. The Global South led the way in ensuring the treaty could be put into practice in a fair and equitable way.

Pictured: A world map that shows the full breadth and potential impact of the treat. National waters are shown in white, and international waters, or the high seas, are everything shown in blue.

Michael Imran Kanu, the head of the African Group and ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the UN for legal affairs of Sierra Leone, said the treaty was “robust and ambitious”. Kanu, who expressed concerns during talks over the fair and equitable sharing of benefits, said: “We really achieved amazing results” on this issue. Monetary and non-monetary benefits would be shared and an initial upfront fund would be set up under the treaty. He welcomed the adoption of the “common heritage of humankind” as a key principle for the high seas, which was a red line for many developing states. “That was significant for us”, he said...

In a move seen as an attempt to build trust between rich and poor countries, the European Union pledged €40m ($42m) in New York to facilitate the ratification of the treaty and its early implementation.

Monica Medina, the US assistant secretary for oceans, international environment and scientific affairs, who attended the negotiations in New York, said: “We leave here with the ability to create protected areas in the high seas and achieve the ambitious goal of conserving 30% of the ocean by 2030. And the time to start is now.”

-via The Guardian (US), 3/4/23

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

How do you get people to care about something they can’t see?

That has always presented a challenge in environmental conservation messaging, where a consumer’s decisions can affect people or species on the other side of the planet. It can be hard to connect the dots between a candy bar containing palm oil sold in Indiana to the destruction of an orangutan’s habitat in Indonesia, or how purchasing a cheeseburger in Nebraska contributes to deforestation of the Amazon.

While advocates have had some notable successes communicating these threats, promoting similar efforts to protect ocean life has proven even harder — even for communities that live right next to those waters.

Two of the biggest threats to marine biodiversity come from unsustainable overfishing and habitat loss — both of which also threaten the food security and livelihoods of coastal communities.

To fight these threats, governments have increasingly turned to creating marine protected areas (MPAs), essentially underwater national parks that protect habitats and organisms that live within them.

What can we do to build local support for MPAs and enhance their success? Wootton and her colleagues tried using an innovative collection of virtual and visual tools to persuade people of the benefits of an MPA. It focused on beloved marine species that would be protected by an MPA network, which the researchers called the “Fab Five.”

Wootton and a team of marine scientists, in partnership with First Nations Sea Country peoples, wanted to assess what gets community members to care about the ocean and support an MPA. Working in South Australia, which has 26 commonwealth or state marine parks, they picked five iconic local species who benefit from the MPA, including the Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea), giant Australian cuttlefish (Sepia apama), white-bellied sea eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster), great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), and southern right whale (Eubalaena australis).

Comprehensive global database of marine and terrestrial protected areas.

The World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) is the most comprehensive global database of marine and terrestrial protected areas, updated on a monthly basis, and is one of the key global biodiversity data sets being widely used by scientists, businesses, governments, International secretariats and others to inform planning, policy decisions and management. The WDPA is a joint project between United Nations Environment Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The compilation and management of the WDPA is carried out by United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), in collaboration with governments, non-governmental organisations, academia and industry. There are monthly updates of the data which are made available online through the Protected Planet website where the data is both viewable and downloadable. Data and information on the world's protected areas compiled in the WDPA are used for reporting to the Convention on Biological Diversity on progress towards reaching the Aichi Biodiversity Targets (particularly Target 11), to the UN to track progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, to some of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) core indicators, and other international assessments and reports including the Global Biodiversity Outlook, as well as for the publication of the United Nations List of Protected Areas. Every two years, UNEP-WCMC releases the Protected Planet Report on the status of the world's protected areas and recommendations on how to meet international goals and targets. Many platforms are incorporating the WDPA to provide integrated information to diverse users, including businesses and governments, in a range of sectors including mining, oil and gas, and finance. For example, the WDPA is included in the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool, an innovative decision support tool that gives users easy access to up-to-date information that allows them to identify biodiversity risks and opportunities within a project boundary. The reach of the WDPA is further enhanced in services developed by other parties, such as the Global Forest Watch and the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas, which provide decision makers with access to monitoring and alert systems that allow whole landscapes to be managed better. Together, these applications of the WDPA demonstrate the growing value and significance of the Protected Planet initiative.

History of Marine Conservation

Introduction Marine conservation is the practice of protecting and preserving the marine environment, including its biodiversity, ecosystems, and natural resources. The need for marine conservation arose from the recognition of the many threats facing the marine environment, including overfishing, pollution, climate change, and habitat destruction. The history of marine conservation can be…

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Yesterday National Scientist Dr. Angel C. Alcala passed away after living a life dedicated to conservation. From ridge to reef, from fish to… frogs!

Born on March 1, 1929 in Negros Occidental he eventually became a prominent marine researcher at Silliman University. There he helped establish community-led marine reserves in nearby Apo Island. It was then that he showed the world that effective marine conservation efforts can occur with long term partnerships between communities, local government, and NGOs.

He also worked with fellow researcher Walter Brown on co-authoring more than 70 publications including those about Philippine amphibians and reptiles. The Brown & Alcala’s Sierra Madre Frog was named after them: 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘯, where the word tipanan refers to their partnership. Several reptile species have also been named after Dr. Alcala such as the recently discovered Alcala’s Reed Snake from Mindoro, Alcala’s Wolf Snake from Batanes, and Alcala’s Triangle-spotted Snake from Romblon.

Dr. Alcala has shown us the importance of our environment, from ridge to reef, and how working together is the best way to conserve it!

Gökova Körfezi [Gokova bay]

Following my previous post from Amorgos and Amorgorama, I have found a new way to enrich the way I present my photography, thus adding to all photos  their dedicated soundscapes, in the final shape of a short film.

Over and above my artistic concerns, a few weeks  ago I was invited by Blue Marine Foundation to participate along with many colleagues from around the Mediterranean Sea, working in marine conservation in a dedicated meeting in Akyaka, Türkiye. Apart from the very interesting and fulfilling discussions during the summit, I also had the opportunity to stroll around the streets and beaches of the small town, and join a short guided excursion/field trip with the whole group through the Gökova bay MPA. The protected part of Gökova is managed in close collaboration with local small scale fisheries communities by the Mediterranean Conservation Society (Akdeniz Koruma Derneği), a Turkish Environmental NGO focusing on charismatic endangered marine species, biodiversity conservation, tackling the negative impacts of fisheries, and the restoration of marine ecosystems.

I have to admit that the work carried out by the Turkish colleagues is outstanding, especially concerning the cooperation with local fishers, the increased achievement of compliance to strict legislation regarding No Fishing Zones, and the effective surveillance and patrolling of the area. Despite the extensive marine habitat degradation, and fish stock depletion, now-a-days an ubiquitous state, at least in the familiar waters of the eastern parts of the Mediterranean sea, keystone charismatic species, such as the local populations of Mediterranean monk seals (Monachus monachus) and sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus) seem to be recovering in the overall area of the bay, yielding promising insights and expectations for a more encouraging future in the preservation of marine biodiversity and the restoration of our oceans.

The natural environment, both marine and terrestrial, the cultural landscape, the overall scenery and aspects of Gökova bay, and particularly the human and social elements felt more than close, intimate one could say, fully reflecting the close ties and shared heritage between the peoples living in the two sides of the Aegean Sea.

Ottawa and Quebec have announced their intention to protect the waters near a picturesque territory in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that was recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and his provincial counterpart, Benoit Charette, said today they're taking the first steps toward creating a protected marine park off Anticosti Island. They say the proposed site, stretching north from the island to the Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve, is home to marine mammals -- including the endangered North Atlantic right whale -- as well as colonies of seabirds and important fish populations.

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Tagging @politicsofcanada

Map locating the Salas y Gomez and Nazca submarine mountain ranges and Chilean offshore sites.

From the article:

In international waters off the coasts of Chile and Peru, the ocean teems with plant and animal species—some do not exist anywhere else and many are endangered.

Urgently seeking to prevent biodiversity loss in these waters, Chile is pushing for a new marine protected area (MPA) to be created, and hoping to seal the deal during an upcoming summit at UN headquarters in New York.

[....]

A 2021 study in the academic journal Marine Policy said the high seas areas of the Salas y Gomez and Nazca ridges are "under threat from a variety of stressors, including climate change, plastic pollution, overfishing, and potential deep-sea mining in the future."

As UN member states meet in New York next week in the hopes of finalizing a long-awaited treaty on high seas protection, Chile has already started work on having the area around the two ridges declared an MPA (Marine Protected Area).

It could become the world's first, but time is of the essence.

[....]

Read more.

For years, the people of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation watched over their waters and waited. They had spent nearly two decades working with Canada’s federal government to negotiate protections for Kitasu Bay, an area off the coast of British Columbia that was vulnerable to overfishing.

But the discussions never seemed to go anywhere. First, they broke down over pushback from the fishing industry, then over a planned oil tanker route directly through Kitasoo/Xai’xais waters.

“We were getting really frustrated with the federal government. They kept jumping onboard and then pulling out,” says Douglas Neasloss, the chief councillor and resource stewardship director of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation. “Meanwhile, we’d been involved in marine planning for 20 years – and we still had no protected areas.”

Instead, the nation watched as commercial overfishing decimated the fish populations its people had relied on for thousands of years.

Nestled on the west coast of Swindle Island, approximately 500km north of Vancouver, Kitasu Bay is home to a rich array of marine life: urchins and abalone populate the intertidal pools, salmon swim in the streams and halibut take shelter in the deep waters. In March, herring return to spawn in the eelgrass meadows and kelp forests, nourishing humpback whales, eagles, wolves and bears.

“Kitasu Bay is the most important area for the community – that’s where we get all of our food,” Neasloss says. “It’s one of the last areas where you still get a decent spawn of herring.”

So in December 2021, when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans withdrew from discussions once again, the nation decided to act. “My community basically said, ‘We’re tired of waiting. Let’s take it upon ourselves to do something about it,’” Neasloss says.

What they did was unilaterally declare the creation of a new marine protected area (MPA). In June 2022, the nation set aside 33.5 sq km near Laredo Sound as the new Gitdisdzu Lugyeks (Kitasu Bay) MPA – closing the waters of the bay to commercial and sport fishing.

It is a largely unprecedented move. While other marine protected areas in Canada fall under the protection of the federal government through the Oceans Act, Kitasu Bay is the first to be declared under Indigenous law, under the jurisdiction and authority of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation.

Pictured: "In some ways, I hope someone challenges us" … the Kitasoo/Xai’xais stewardship authority.

Although they did not wait for government approval, the Kitasoo did consult extensively: the declaration was accompanied by a draft management plan, finalised in October after three months of consultation with industry and community stakeholders. But the government did not provide feedback during that period, according to Neasloss, beyond an acknowledgment that it had received the plan...

Approximately 95% of British Columbia is unceded: most First Nations in the province of British Columbia never signed treaties giving up ownership of their lands and waters to the crown. This puts them in a unique position to assert their rights and title, according to Neasloss, who hopes other First Nations will be inspired to take a similarly proactive approach to conservation...

Collaboration remains the goal, and Neasloss points to a landmark agreement between the Haida nation and the government in 1988 to partner in conserving the Gwaii Haanas archipelago, despite both parties asserting their sovereignty over it. A similar deal was made in 2010 for the region’s 3,400 sq km Gwaii Haanas national marine conservation area.

“They found a way to work together, which is pretty exciting,” says Neasloss. “And I think there may be more Indigenous protected areas that are overlaid with something else.”

-via The Guardian, 5/3/23

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

New details of the Biden administration’s signature conservation effort, made public this month amid a burst of other environmental announcements, have alarmed some scientists who study marine protected areas because the plan would count certain commercial fishing zones as conserved.

The decision could have ripple effects around the world as nations work toward fulfilling a broader global commitment to safeguard 30 percent of the entire planet’s land, inland waters and seas. That effort has been hailed as historic, but the critical question of what, exactly, counts as conserved is still being decided.

This early answer from the Biden administration is worrying, researchers say, because high-impact commercial fishing is incompatible with the goals of the efforts.

“Saying that these areas that are touted to be for biodiversity conservation should also do double duty for fishing as well, especially highly impactful gears that are for large-scale commercial take, there’s just a cognitive dissonance there,” said Kirsten Grorud-Colvert, a marine biologist at Oregon State University who led a group of scientists that in 2021 published a guide for evaluating marine protected areas.

The debate is unfolding amid a global biodiversity crisis that is speeding extinctions and eroding ecosystems, according to a landmark intergovernmental assessment. As the natural world degrades, its ability to give humans essentials like food and clean water also diminishes. The primary driver of biodiversity declines in the ocean, the assessment found, is overfishing. Climate change is an additional and ever-worsening threat.

Fish are an important source of nutrition for billions of people around the world. Research shows that effectively conserving key areas is an key tool to keep stocks healthy while also protecting other ocean life.

There are only two marine protected areas in Antarctica — here’s why we need to overcome geopolitics and implement more before it’s too late

#Earth #Environment #ClimateCrisis #NowThis

Love to see this! Happy World Oceans Day (June 08) everyone.

Link to the satirical video is here.

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