The member countries of the UN have reached after many years of debate a “historic” agreement to establish a treaty that protects the high seas that experts and environmental organizations consider vital to save the oceans.
The consensus has come after a marathon round of negotiations that started on February 20 and was scheduled to close this Friday but, in the absence of the last fringes, continued throughout the night and on Saturday. In total, a marathon day of more than 35 hours followed by discussions to iron out the latest differences.
Thus, the text lays the foundations for the establishment of marine protected areas, which should make it easier to fulfill the international promise to safeguard at least 30% of the oceans by the year 2030.
“The ship has reached the coast,” announced the president of the negotiations, an exhausted Rena Lee, to confirm that there was finally a consensus on the document, news received with a standing ovation by the delegations gathered at the United Nations headquarters. .
The formal adoption of the treaty, however, will have to wait a little longer, until a group of technicians guarantees the uniformity of the terms used in it and it is translated into the six official languages ??of the UN, as agreed by the countries.
Some, including Russia, however, left the door open to reopen some issue because they had not been able to review some points in detail due to the harsh conditions of the final hours of the negotiation and the fact that some of their experts had already left NY.
“This is a historic day for conservation and a sign that in a divided world, protecting nature and people can trump geopolitics,” Laura Meller of the environmental group Greenpeace said in a first reaction.
Pollution, climate change and new technologies that open the door to mining at the bottom of the seas and more intensive fishing are, according to experts, the main threats to the high seas, which accounts for two thirds of the total oceans.
Despite its enormous importance for the planet, until now these waters located more than 200 nautical miles from the coast and which are shared by all countries have been managed under a series of international agreements and organizations without clear jurisdiction, without much coordination and with inadequate standards for their protection.
The new treaty will be established within the framework of the existing United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and seeks to “ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.”
