After years of debates and discussions, nations have agreed on a High Seas Treaty to protect marine biodiversity and provide oversight of international waters. It is being lauded by researchers as an important step for conservation that encourages international research collaboration without hindering science. Were ecstatic, says Kristina Gjerde, who researches marine environmental law at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California.
This long-awaited treaty contains many of the vital things we need to safeguard our oceans. The final wording of the agreement was hashed out by delegates of the United Nations Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction BBNJ at the end of a two-week meeting in New York City.
The final session, which lasted for 38 uninterrupted hours, finished long after expected, on 4 March. That was excessive, even by UN standards, says Marcel Jaspars, a chemist and marine bioprospector at the University of Aberdeen, UK, who took part in the proceedings as an adviser to the International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN. It was madness.
TREATY INCLUDES
- The treaty creates various groups including a scientific and technical body to oversee regulations and react to changing conditions.
- It also emphasizes capacity building for research in lower-income nations, to ensure equitable access to science and to benefits from ocean discoveries.
- The issue of benefit sharing from marine genetic resources was the biggest sticking point of the negotiations.
- Marine life is thought to be a goldmine for these resources, which include molecules with pharmaceutical uses.
SCIENTIST SAYING
As a Caribbean scientist, I am extremely pleased with this aspect of the treaty, says Judith Gobin, a marine ecologist at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, in Trinidad and Tobago. For too long we have watched research ships passing in the night, taking our marine organisms away. Now, she says, we will be truly involved.
The agreement calls for scientists to add a BBNJ standardized batch identifier to genetic data and biological samples collected from marine life, and to notify a clearing house as to where those data are published, no later than one year after collection.
The identifier will be attached to any patents or sales of marketed products that come from the original research. For researchers, you all just have another number to attach to your spreadsheet, Jaspars says, adding that most of the logistical burden of benefit sharing will instead land on those developing commercial applications.
ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTS
- Nations will review these assessments and be in charge of approving the activities.
- The assessments will provide a useful central source of information about ocean activities.
- Some scientists had worried that the treaty might require new permits for research projects exploring the high seas, adding bureaucracy to studies that can already be hard to get off the ground.
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