News from America – Our Ocean conference concludes with 341 Commitments to Protect

Closing the conference on Friday, Panamanian Foreign Minister Janina Tiwani announced that “341 new pledges” had been identified to combat pollution, illegal fishing and other threats to the sea, including $19.97 billion in financing.

At that forum, France announced that it had joined the conservation “corridor” in the tropical Pacific, established by the United States, Panama and Fiji, to “expand cooperation in the service of protecting oceans and marine biodiversity,” according to the French. Secretary of State for the Seas, Hervé Pierreville.

In December, the world’s governments agreed to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030. This is an impossible challenge without including the high seas, of which only 1% is protected.

The high seas begin where the states’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs) end, to a maximum of 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the coast, so they are not under the jurisdiction of any nation.

Although they account for more than 60% of the oceans and nearly half of the planet, they have been ignored for too long as attention has focused on coastal regions and iconic species.

Race against time at the United Nations

In parallel, the member states of the United Nations continued to work on Saturday morning, after a night of sleepless nights, to try to bridge their divisions and reach a treaty that would protect the high seas, a fragile and vital treasure covering half the planet.

After fifteen years of formal and informal exchanges, negotiators have already outgrown two weeks of third round talks in less than a year in New York by several hours.

Negotiations have been steep in recent days, and delegates still meet behind closed doors on Saturday morning.

“We still have to clarify some issues, but we are making progress and delegations are showing flexibility,” conference chair Rina Lee said in a short plenary session held at around 1:30 am local time.

A highly political chapter on the sharing of potential benefits from marine genetic resources was absent from the last draft text.

“Obviously they are still trying as hard as they can to get a treaty today, otherwise they would have already thrown in the towel,” said Natalie Ray of the High Seas Coalition, which groups about forty NGOs.