Will the High Seas Treaty Actually Change Anything?

0:00 The hardest part of the High Seas Treaty was never reaching the agreement, although that was difficult. It's what happens after the headlines disappear. This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update. If you care about staying informed about the ocean every single weekday, Monday to Friday, hit that follow button right now so you don't miss tomorrow's episode. Today, we're asking the question many people in ocean conservation are quietly thinking. Will the High Seas Treaty actually change anything? And to be honest, we're not quietly thinking it. We are saying it out loud, top of our lungs. Will this change anything? Will this massive thing that requires numerous countries to agree on and be able to agree on every little decision that's made, will they actually go ahead with it?

0:45 Will it change anything? Because history shows us something important. Big environmental announcements do not automatically create big environmental incomes. The Paris Climate Accord was a huge thing, historic even. But then major countries are pulling out and you're like, "Oh, wow. Well, hold on a second." We have two countries, or one or two countries who are like the biggest emitters, and they're not part of this. They keep pulling, like one keeps pulling out and coming back in, pulling out and coming back in. It's really confusing, but it makes it difficult to do any kind of conservation in the future. Now let's be honest, like the High Seas Treaty was historic, is historic. And for the first time, the world has a framework to better protect biodiversity beyond the national borders. That matters because the high seas cover nearly half of the planet.

1:28 And until now, there hasn't been any comprehensive mechanism for establishing marine protected areas across those waters. When the final gavel went down to say that the high seas went off, it's on YouTube if you ever wanna watch it. The person who had the gavel was in tears of happiness and just drained probably from all the negotiations over the number of years. Some people did not see it happen within their lifetime and a lot of us saw it. That's a huge historic victory for the ocean. And so, making sure that we're able to have these marine protected areas, that treaty changes it, at least structurally. It creates a legal pathway for coordinated conservation. We haven't seen that before. Like we've had coordinated conservation, especially for MPAs between two countries, maybe even three.

2:11 But it hasn't happened a lot, and within those national boundaries. But like this is a major, major achievement to be able to do that from a legal structure to put MPAs in, marine protected areas, especially considering how difficult international negotiations can actually be. But treaties are all starting points. Like it may not be perfect. They're not the finishing lines. But you know, there's something that we can really start and we can really sink our teeth into. There's also legitimate skepticism, though, on how this is gonna work because conservation has a history of ambitious targets without sufficient implementation. We're looking at 30 by 30, coming up at the end of this decade - where countries are supposed to protect 30% of land, 30% of oceans and water resources in their country by 2030.

2:55 Well, it's kinda coming to a point where funding agencies and countries are really focused on that 30% number. But I was just-- had a conversation with a buddy, Angelo, the other day and saying, "Hey, you know what? What about coastal conservation? Will that really play a role?" Because the MPA systems are gonna be smaller. Now, you might have a network of MPAs within that coastal system, but each MPA individually will be very small and may not contribute much to the 30% number. Like, are we looking at that number? Are we looking at area? Are we looking at quality of that area? There's a lot of stuff that goes on. That 30 by 30 policy that the world has taken on through the Convention of Biological Diversity, that has become, not necessarily a farce, but a little bit of an exaggeration of what we really wanna do.

3:37 Now, of course, it has been successful 'cause we went from 1% global protection to 10% global protection. We're far off from the 30%, but I have a feeling that will ramp up as we get closer to the 2030. But still, at least we've increased it by order of magnitude in terms of the area of protection. And any area of protection at this point is better than nothing. Countries announce protections all the time, but enforcement really remains weak. Funding falls short, political priorities shift, as we see in the US all the time. And of course, like, the industries continue operating largely unchanged because they're not getting enforced on the topic. That's a concern here too, especially with this high seas treaty.

4:17 Will governments actually invest in monitoring and enforcement? Will they? Will marine protected areas become meaningful restrictions or symbolic boundaries? It's gonna be really difficult to find out who's in charge of that enforcement, if there's a high seas marine protected area. So will countries cooperate when economic interests are threatened? That's gonna be something to look forward to, to see what happens. Those questions still don't have clear answers. And this is why many marine conservation leaders are emphasizing that we need accountability, not just a celebration of announcing that there's gonna be a marine protected area. My interview tomorrow with Rebecca Hubbard and many others, they have repeatedly stressed that ratification is critical, so the countries have to ratify high seas.

5:00 We have 89 so far. We still need a lot more to get to our 190 or 195, however many countries there are. Countries must formally adopt the treaty before it can fully move forward. And then implementation becomes a major next hurdle. We still need people to ratify, still need countries to ratify. And to be honest, storytelling comes through on this. If you want countries to ratify, you have to speak to your members of representation, of your government, if you're in a democratic society. That's the whole purpose of that. So when you actually go and talk to your representative, you have to come with a story. You gotta say why this is important to you, why it's important for Canada or for the US or for the UK or for India or for Brazil or for Sri Lanka or for Bangladesh or for Europe to say, "Hey We need to have these marine protected areas, and we need to have them now, and this is why.

5:49 And you tell the story to that person so that you get them interested. And if you're an organization that's working on the high seas and wants to help out and wants to help tell those stories, you can hire the company that I work for, that's also the sponsor for this episode, is Pisces Oceans. I work for them. I am the Oceans Communications Manager. We work with a small team, but we also have a great list of associates that can help and help your organization not only manage projects but tell the stories to really drive the information home that we need marine protected areas in the high seas, and that countries should be listening, and that companies that are involved in industrial activity in the high seas should also be listening.

6:30 They should be following this. And so if you wanna learn more about Pisces Oceans, you can go to piscesoceans.ca, and you can find out more about us. We'd happy to talk to you. And you can also DM me in my social links in the show notes. So what should success actually look like when we talk about the high seas. It probably wouldn't happen overnight. It's gonna take a long time for this to happen. But success would probably mean measurable biodiversity recovery, like actual measurable, scientific monitoring happening, stronger international cooperation, reduced illegal fishing, meaningful protected areas, better monitoring transparency, and long-term political commitment beyond the political term of a particular party.

7:13 We're talking long term, where it is bipartisan. People are on whatever side of the aisle or whatever political party you're a part of, you are actually going to support this long term, not just when you're in and when you're out, somebody else says, "No, we're not gonna be doing this." We don't want that to happen. That flip-flopping cannot happen anymore. And it happens a lot, not just in the US. It happens a lot. And maybe most importantly, success would mean treating the high seas as a shared responsibility instead of an unlimited resource. That mindset shift actually matters because for centuries, much of the ocean has been governed around extraction first. "Let's just use this resource as much as possible, and we don't have to care about the damage because we're probably not gonna have to worry about that." Now, the world is beginning to ask whether protection should carry equal weight.

8:01 The High Seas Treaty talks about equality when we make these types of decisions. That's a major philosophical change. And the next decade may determine whether it becomes reality. And that will be interesting to see, beyond 2030, what's gonna happen. The High Seas Treaty is not a guaranteed victory for the ocean. We know that for sure. But it is an opportunity for us to make some changes. What happens next depends on whether countries are willing to turn promises into measurable action, because protection only works when it becomes real, and we see people actually working to implement and enforce these marine protected areas, making sure that genetic material that is taken from the ocean is equally shared among countries that can take that out, has the technology, and also can't take that out, and is shared.

8:48 This is where we have to work together. This is a huge shift in the way the world works, but we're at a precipice where things need to change. We've seen that politically happen and being said, it's starting to happen with economics and trade, and now it's gonna have to happen within the ocean as well and managing these types of resources, which is gonna be a lot more difficult because there's so many countries that depend on ocean resources. And so that's gonna be interesting to see what happens in the future. But look, that's the episode for today. We are gonna be talking to Rebecca Hubbard tomorrow who's the director of the High Seas Alliance. We're gonna find out more. I hope that I've prepped you enough in these four solo episodes beforehand, Monday to Thursday, so that you can understand our conversation.

9:31 That's really what I do for these, is just kinda talk about individual things that we talk about in the interview episode, so you get a better knowledge. You're prepared now. You've heard some of this stuff, and you get to hear Rebecca's take on it, and I think it's wonderful. Rebecca's an amazing person. You're gonna love hearing her voice. You're gonna love hearing what she has to say. The High Seas Alliance has been playing a huge role in the negotiations for the High Seas Treaty as well as now beyond the High Seas Treaty after it's being ratified. So this is huge. I can't wait to see what happens next. And of course, you can always contact me in my socials. If you go to the show notes, you can just DM me on Instagram, TikTok. If you wanna hit me up on speakupforblue.com/feedback, you can do that as well.

10:12 There's so many ways of doing so. But thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation