The Ocean Just Got a Historic Deal. Will It Actually Protect Your Future?

0:00The high seas treaty, promise or political theater, nearly half of the planet is ocean beyond the national borders. For decades, it has been governed by fragmented rules and weak oversight. So when countries finally agreed to protect biodiversity on the high seas, it sounded historic. But will it change anything on the water? This is how to protect the ocean podcast, your weekly ocean news update. If you care about staying informed on the ocean every weekday, hit that follow button right now so you don't miss tomorrow's story. The high seas treaty has created the first legal mechanism to establish marine protected areas in international waters. For the first time, biodiversity protection beyond national jurisdiction has a global framework. That is significant. But the key question here is, will the high seas treaty produce real protection or remain largely symbolic like we've seen in many other agreements? Here's the problem with the high seas in general before the high treaty was ratified.

1:02Nearly two thirds of the ocean lies beyond national jurisdiction. These areas are often called areas beyond national jurisdiction or ABNG. Historically we haven't been able to create binding MPAs beyond those national borders. Governance has been fragmented across fisheries borders, shipping rules and seabed mining authorities. Just a lot of different types of legal frameworks that haven't really worked. Industrial fishing fleets operate thousands of kilometers from home ports are very difficult to enforce and the responsibility rests primarily on the flag states. If you don't know what a flag state is, essentially every boat has a sail under a flag. So for instance, if I registered my boat in Canada, I had to fly the Canadian flag, I run under the Canadian flag, I follow the Canadian rules. But there are other countries who do not enforce those rules for their own country. Like a lot of people will fly under like a turkey flag and they'll go around and they'll go and fish wherever they want and they won't be beholden to the country turkey because

2:04they don't really enforce the borders. I'm just using this as an example. I'm not saying turkey doesn't enforce the borders. I'm just kind of giving an example here. But when everyone is responsible, no one is really accountable and that's a problem. So here's what the treaty actually is set up to do. The high seas treaty formerly known as the BB&J Agreement, which stands for Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, it's under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea and establishes this, a process to designate MPAs in international waters, environmental impact assessment requirements for the high seas activities, provisions for sharing marine genetic resources, capacity building and technology transfer for developing state nations, a conference of parties structure to a conference of party structures or a cop structure to guide implementation. So we've seen cop structures in other agreements like the climate like the Paris Accord, the climate change agreement. They don't really go very well, same with oil and gas, same with the plastic treaty.

3:05These cops do not really work very well and that could be a problem. We'll talk about that in just a second. The treaty required ratification by 60 countries to enter into force and it actually entered into force on January 17th, 2026. It's not automatic protection, it's a framework for potential protection. Now here's why the high seas treaty is historically significant. For decades, conservationists argued that the high seas biodiversity was lacking a legal standing. This treaty changed that. It creates a legal authority to establish MPAs, mechanisms to assess cumulative environmental impacts. So that's over a lot of different things. It could be shipping, it could be fisheries, it could be anything you really want marine pollution, it could be anything and a governing structure that can align over time. This aligns with the global 30 by 30 biodiversity targets. And without a high seas framework, 30% of global protection was mathematically impossible. But here's the problem. You can have a legal framework, but if you don't have enforcement like we talked about in the last two days, we have a problem.

4:06It gets really complicated when we don't have enforcement. There's no global navy, like there's no UN body that will go around and provide enforcement. Enforcement relies largely on the flagstays policing their own vessels. Some distant water fleets operate under flags of convenience. So you'll have like some fisheries that will go, some fisheries vessels or fleets that will go way, way far off their borders. Nobody can really see them except for satellites and maybe other countries and they'll be able to act the way they want. But they may not fly under the flag that they're actually, you know, stay in. They're just registered under a different flag that may not have the same legal frameworks or the same enforcement ability to prosecute these ships. So they just end up doing whatever they want and they get away with everything. And then of course, monitoring of all these distance fleets really depends on satellite tracking and reporting compliance. If a country fails to enforce violations against their own vessels, accountability mechanisms are limited.

5:07Legal authority does not guarantee compliance. Now, of course, with the high seas treaty, you know, from an ecological standpoint, it makes sense, right? We see the high seas treaty and be like, this is going to protect biodiversity. We're going to get MPAs. We're going to get environmental impact assessments on a lot of different things that are happening along like in the high seas, like deep sea mining, fisheries, marine pollution, all these different types of things that could affect the ocean. So from an ecological standpoint, as a scientist, as an ecologist, this is great. Like this is great news. But then we don't really factor in industrial pressure or geopolitics, right? So the high seas are economically valuable. The industrial tuna fleets operate extensively in international waters. Deep sea mining interests are expanding. We're seeing it in the US and we're seeing it in like places like Norway, although they've banned it for a little while. But we're starting to see interest from a lot of different countries. Marine genetic resources are commercially valuable for medicines, right? These are very important things or for even like clothing and all these different types of things that we could use all this genetic material to make our lives better and make

6:11a ton of money. Shipping lanes are critical for a global trade. But shipping lanes, if they're not done properly, can get in the way of marine mammals like the North Atlantic right whale, which is critically endangered. And let's be honest, these whales don't necessarily see boundaries. So if they go beyond the 200 nautical miles of the US or even Canada, they are open and anything can hit it. People resistance can emerge when protection intersects with economic interest. We're seeing it now in the US where fisheries protections are being taken away because there's a political interest to open up the economy, the fisheries economy. That's going to affect a lot of different animals, including marine mammals, sea turtles, sharks, tuna, all these different types of fish that are commercially important, but also the food web in general because all these protections have been taken away. Ocean governance is not just ecological, it's geopolitical. So what does real success look like under the high seas treaty? I think it would include rapid ratification by at least 60 countries, which we've got. So that's great.

7:12Designation of large, ecologically meaningful high seas MPAs, integration of satellite monitoring into compliance systems to help enforce those marine protected areas, and transparent reporting and independent review mechanisms from NGOs like Global Fishing Watch and other places. And then strong coordination with regional fisheries management organization, RFMOs, which will help and just coordinate all these different activities to know who's working and where and how they can enforce these activities. The treaty provides structure implementation determines outcome. Now here's the risk when you put in like the politics of it all, the political theater, if you will. So the risk is that countries ratify symbolically, but delay implementation. This happens a lot of times, you'll see countries just sign on and be like, hey, we signed on, we're down with this kind of thing, but then they don't do anything about it. MPAs are designated without strong restrictions. Enforcement remains weak, which the MPAs are worthless, they become paper parks. And area targets are emphasized over protection quality.

8:13So they're trying to look at how much coverage we can get, but doesn't mean we can enforce them or protect them. So they get, they become paper parks, not quality parks. We have seen this pattern before in coastal MPAs, so it's not new. And then having it in the high seas makes it even more difficult, because it's in remote areas that people are not generally around. The lesson from previous episodes still apply, protection works when it's real. If you want clear science-based breakdowns of ocean policy every weekday, follow this show if you don't want to miss what comes next. Let's just frame it all for the final show, the final thought on this episode. The high seas treaty is a milestone. There's no doubt about that, but milestones are not outcomes. For the first time, the global community has a legal pathway to protect biodiversity and international waters. That actually matters. But here's the truth. The ocean does not respond to agreements, it responds to enforcement, it responds to compliance, and it responds to reduced extraction.

9:15The treaty creates possibility. Political will determines the reality. The high seas have been largely invisible for centuries, now they are on a policy stage. The question is whether protection will move from paper to practice. I'd love to hear what you think about this episode. Hit me up if you want to give me your feedback. Let me know at SpeakUpForBlue.com-forge-feedback. At SpeakUpForBlue.com-forge-feedback, you can let me know either by leaving a voicemail or you can write something down. I would love to hear what you think. This is the beginning of a conversation, and I want to continue it with you, each and every one of you who are listening to this episode. I want to 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. Happy Conservation. Happy Conservation. Happy Conservation. Happy Conservation. Happy Conservation. Happy Conservation. Happy Conservation. Happy Conservation. Happy Conservation.