The High Seas Alliance is deeply saddened to mark the passing of Kristina Gjerde, who died on 26 December 2025. A tireless advocate for the High Seas, with a background in law, Kristina understood that meaningful High Seas protection could only be realized through careful diplomacy, patience, collaboration and inclusive dialogue between governments, scientists, researchers, civil society and rights-holders.
In 2011, Kristina helped establish the High Seas Alliance, bringing together organizations working on the deep sea and the ocean surface to identify shared priorities for the High Seas. What started as a handful of groups advocating together for a new treaty to protect High Seas marine life, has now grown to over 70 organizations united in a common cause. In March 2023, the final text of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement – or High Seas Treaty – was agreed. In November 2025, it won the prestigious Earth Shot Prize.
Kristina’s early focus on place-based management to protect sensitive areas from shipping impacts and identifying pathways to establish High Seas protected areas helped lay the critical groundwork for this Treaty. She not only demonstrated the urgent need for action but also showed how existing precedents from other agreements could guide new protection as well.
Beyond policy and diplomacy, Kristina was an extraordinary mentor. Through her professorships, informal guidance and general encouragement, she inspired early career scientists, lawyers and advocates. In October 2025, at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, she launched the Ocean Stewardship Award, dedicated to supporting early career ocean advocates- ensuring that her legacy will live on.
For over a decade Kristina served on the High Seas Alliance Steering Committee representing IUCN, where she spent most of her career working for.
Reflecting on her legacy, Rebecca Hubbard, Executive Director of the High Seas Alliance, said:
“The High Seas has lost its most ardent champion – we thought of Kristina as the mother of the High Seas. Her strategic leadership, reasoned guidance and mentorship were incomparable. Her understanding of the interlinkages of science and policy and her ability communicate them so effectively helped lead to broad agreement that a new treaty was needed. We will miss her deeply, but she has left us one of the most important legacies in ocean conservation as well as a new generation of ocean champions that will help establish the world’s first high seas protected areas. She will be remembered every step of the way. We thank her family for sharing so much of her with us.”
At the time of her passing, 145 countries have signed the Treaty and 81 have ratified, with entry into force set for January 17, 2026.
Alongside her work with the High Seas Alliance, Kristina also was a driving force behind the creation of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, the Sargasso Sea Alliance, and theDeep Ocean Stewardship Initiative, further cementing her role as one of the most influential ocean governance leaders of our time.
Kristina is survived by her husband Adam and son Darius, and a wide community of colleagues and friends. At her request, in lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her memory to the Ocean Stewardship Award in USD or GBP, and contributions to a memorial page may also be made here.