Ocean supplement: Time to close the high seas?

By 2020, one of two things will have happened. Either we will have taken steps to halt and reverse the declining health of the world’s oceans, or we will be forced into a drastic effort to salvage what we can of the sea’s dwindling marine life, which could require closing much of it to human activity. That’s the stark choice put forward by the Global Ocean Commission, an organisation based at Somerville College, Oxford. I am a co-chair of the commission and follow the situation closely; at this stage, both outcomes are possible.

We have a moral duty to act. But before action can be taken a change has to come at a global scale. Governments, business leaders and the international community must heed the warnings of scientists. If they do not, and nothing is done, then we will continue onwards to clearly sign-posted disaster. The current plunder of the high seas threatens to become the last great buffalo hunt, a free-for-all ending in irreversible loss of iconic species. Except this time we cannot plead ignorance. Political developments make me cautiously optimistic that this issue is gaining prominence in the international arena, not least at the United Nations and G7. But rescuing the ocean will take much more than well-meaning international agreements: action will also be needed.

On 19th June, the 193 member states of the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to draft an international treaty on control of the high seas: the 64 per cent of the ocean that lies beyond the jurisdiction of any state. An agreement to reach an agreement may not sound much like progress, but it is the culmination of nine years of fraught negotiations, and marks the first time that UN member states have considered how to protect marine life, rather than how to manage its removal. If adopted, the treaty will make it possible to establish marine protected areas (MPAs) in the high seas. The Global Ocean Commission campaigned for this global treaty, which will be the first for the ocean in over 20 years. We will push for it to be adopted on schedule, between 2018 and 2020.

The governance of the high seas can best be compared to that of a failed state. Anarchy prevails, and those who can, steal. Governance is, at best, weak and fragmented, and at worst, entirely absent, with no international body responsible for regulating the use of resources. The implementation and enforcement of agreed commitments is inadequate, and coordination across sectors—fishing, transport, mining—is virtually non-existent. Only 0.79 per cent of the high seas falls within designated protected areas, compared with 12.7 per cent of land. How has two thirds of the surface of the planet descended into such a state of lawlessness?

Most people will only ever see the high seas through an aeroplane window, if at all, but we will all suffer the consequences of their deterioration. The high seas are responsible for half of the ocean’s biological productivity, home to the great whales, sharks and the tiny plankton that sustain food chains and provide vital functions like carbon absorption. If the impact of overfishing and marine pollution, as well as the acidification, warming and deoxygenation that come from climate change, leave the high seas unable to fulfil these essential functions, the results will be disastrous. Marine life will die out. The sea will lose its ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Destructive pirate fishing, and the uncontrolled dumping of plastics and other waste, is not a victimless crime. Industrial high-seas fishing fleets, most of which receive generous public subsidies from the world’s richest nations, deplete the fish stocks that are targeted by smaller fishers nearer to shore. This is already exacerbating poverty, malnutrition and instability in some of the world’s most vulnerable coastal and island communities, notably in west Africa, a region that loses $1.3bn of fish to illegal fishers every year. Evidence also points to links between these unscrupulous fishing operators and other even more sinister crimes, including drug smuggling and slavery.

This sorry situation has come about through a combination of apathy, neglect and opportunism. When the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—the “Constitution for the Ocean”—was adopted in 1982, the high seas were protected by inaccessibility, and left essentially ungoverned by the convention. Today, there is virtually nowhere that industrial fishing vessels cannot reach, offshore oil and gas drilling is extending further and deeper every year, and deep sea mineral extraction is becoming increasingly attractive for resource companies. The freedom of the high seas, guaranteed by UNCLOS, is being exploited by those with the money and technology to do so, but with little concern for the future.

International law and governance lag decades behind the scientific understanding of the importance of the high seas. It is time to catch up. The UN’s June treaty resolution was a good start, but much more is needed to combat the many drivers of ocean decline. There are two further seminal international agreements that are scheduled for later this year. The first will be the commitment by all states to a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to replace the now expired Millennium Development Goals—this will take place at a UN Summit in September. Unlike their predecessors, the SDGs will be universal rather than focused only on poorer regions, and—presuming the latest draft survives the final negotiations—will include a goal to: “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” Specific targets, to be hit by 2020, include ending overfishing, illegal fishing and destructive fishing practices; conserving at least 10 per cent of marine and coastal areas; prohibiting “certain forms” of subsidies that contribute to overcapacity; and eliminating all subsidies that contribute to illegal fishing.

These pledges, though welcome, will require major interventions and coordination among nations, international agencies and the private sector. Successfully banning the deeply unjust fishing subsidies (primarily awarded by rich countries including the US, EU, China and Japan) that artificially boost fishing overcapacity by about $30bn a year, will be a complex affair that will meet staunch opposition. On the high seas, where two-thirds of fish come from dangerously depleted stocks, the vast majority of fishing is carried out by just 10 states, all of which heavily subsidise their fleets. This issue has languished unresolved at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for decades, but I detected a glimmer of hope when I attended WTO meetings in June. When trade ministers meet in Nairobi later this year, they could back the UN’s new goals, which would leave the way open for the WTO to abolish these harmful fisheries subsidies.

Dealing with subsidies will help, but the real task is to close our seas, ports and markets to pirate fishing vessels. There has already been some progress in this area, made by regional fishing organisations, by many states (notably the US and EU member states), and by agencies like Interpol. But illegal fishing remains a crime that all too often does pay, and far too seldom results in punishment. Globally, illegal fishing takes 20 per cent of the ocean fish catch, a number that remains stubbornly high, and coordinated global action will be required to meet the target of ending illegal fishing by 2020. Fortunately there is already the 2009 Port State Measures Agreement, which, once implemented, will see ports closed to pirate fishers—25 states must ratify the agreement before it can come into force. Eleven have already done so, and a further 17 have initiated the process.

The second international agreement expected this year is the climate change deal, which will be negotiated in Paris in December. While the terms of this accord are far from certain, judging by the most recent International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the ocean will feature prominently in discussions.

In the course of the coming five years, the practical, measurable outcomes of these international goals and treaties will determine whether sufficient action has been taken to avoid closing the high seas to fishing. The Global Ocean Commission is hopeful that it will not come to that, but will not hesitate to call for such extreme measures if required. Our oceans are too precious not to save. The human and financial consequences of declaring the high seas a protected area would be negligible, and would be more than compensated for by the resulting benefits to fishing in coastal zones, which employs and feeds far more people. Putting this further into perspective, a recent report estimates the value of carbon storage by the high seas at between $74bn and $222bn per year, easily dwarfing the $16bn generated by high seas fisheries.

The second half of 2015 will be complex—but crucial. The threats are well known, and the solutions are on the table; political leaders must take this opportunity, and secure a future in which the seas survive, to the benefit of us all.