Biodiversity Management of the High Seas
The cold, dark inky depths of the ocean are home to biodiversity richer than a tropical rainforest, the extent and potential of which we are barely beginning to grasp.
Convention (UNCLOS). The 69th session opened in September 2014, thus beginning an important 12 months for high seas protection, which will see the United Nations discussing the future of the high seas and how they should be effectively governed. The Law of the Sea was conceived in 1982 – long before we fully understood how rapidly technology would change and continue to change our world. It enshrined the freedom of the seas before we understood exactly how to ensure the reciprocal responsibilities to protect, conserve, cooperate and control national vessels. As such, it is a product of its time and according to the High Seas Alliance (HSA), no longer fit for purpose in the 21st century. The HSA is a coalition of environmental organizations concerned about the vulnerability of the high seas to over exploitation and although it argues that UNCLOS is failing the high seas, the Alliance does believe that it offers the basis for an appropriate solution. According to Peggy Kalas of the HSA, “as a negotiated and widely ratified agreement, it provides a framework for modernization and a platform for states to work upon. It makes change achievable because we don’t need to start from the beginning or reinvent the wheel in order to bring about modern protection for the high seas.”
tons of carbon per year by storing one-and-a half billion tons of carbon dioxide away from the atmosphere. Commissioned by the Global Ocean Commission and conducted by Professor Alex Rogers of Somerville College, Oxford and Professor Rashid Sumaila of the University of British Columbia, the study identified 15 high seas ecosystem services of direct value to humans, ranging from ‘provisioning’ services such as genetic resources and raw materials, ‘regulating’ such as air purification and biological control, to ‘habitat’ services such as life cycle maintenance and gene pool protection. Describing the major ways in which the ocean stores and fixes carbon away from the atmosphere, the study calculated an economic value for the role of high seas carbon sequestration as between US$74 and US$222 billion annually. It also found that the 11 million tons of fish caught annually on the high seas, generate more than US$16 billion once landed. Professor Rogers told World Environment Magazine: “It is important to view and manage the global ocean as a whole Earth system to protect the vital services which it supplies to humankind. At the moment, the high seas are the weakest link because of their poor management and lack of governance relative to Economic Exclusion Zones.”
Climate Change and the Ocean
Adoption of an Implementing Agreement
Just how vital that protection is, was highlighted earlier in 2014, when a new scientific study revealed the extent to which life in the high seas is mitigating climate change by taking up a staggering 500 million
According to the High Seas Alliance and the Global Ocean Commission, an Implementing Agreement under UNCLOS would provide an opportunity for the creation of new ❮ 65