Governments take it to the wire as third UN meeting on fate of the high seas gets ready to begin in New York.
World governments will meet this week, tasked with fulfilling the RIO+20 commitment to take a decision on whether to begin negotiations to launch a new agreement that would help protect ungoverned areas of the ocean – those beyond national jurisdiction (known as the BBNJ meeting).
Continue reading High Time for the High Seas at the United Nations
Over the past two months, High Seas Alliance members have been actively engaged in a number of regional workshops to discuss a new implementing agreement (IA) under UNCLOS on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction (BBNJ). Over the course of these two-day workshops, governments heard presentations from regional and international experts and discussed the need for this implementing agreement, the UN General Assembly Working Group process concerning this issue, and components of the “package” including area-based management tools including marine protected areas, marine genetic resources including access and a benefit sharing regime, environmental impacts assessments, and capacity- building and the transfer of marine technology. Most recently, these workshops have taken place in:
Continue reading HSA Members Host Series of Regional BBNJ Workshops
Between the 12 – 19 November 2014, over 6000 people from 170 countries came together in Sydney, Australia, for the World Parks Congress; a landmark global forum on protected areas held every ten years. As the world’s most influential gathering of people involved in protected area management, it sets the global agenda for the following decade.
Continue reading IUCN’s World Parks Congress: Report from Sydney
From Nov. 2-9, High Seas Alliance members participated in the Blue Ocean Film Festival held in St. Petersburg, Florida. The prestigious festival is one of the biggest environmental documentary film events in the world, with projects from the likes of 60 Minutes, National Geographic, the Smithsonian Channel and Telemundo. The seven-day event drew about 20,000 people. High Seas Alliance team members, Mirella von Lindenfels and Nicholas Steel met with the ocean community at the festival in St Petersburg Florida to build a “wave of change” for the high seas, raising awareness for the urgent need for stronger high seas protection.
Continue reading Building a wave of change at the Blue Ocean Film Festival
In partnership with the Waitt Foundation, Marine Conservation Institute (MCI) has been tracking global progress towards protecting oceans using data curated on its website MPAtlas. Presently, only 2.1% of the global ocean is under marine protected area management and an even smaller percentage have the strongest level of protection, no-take marine reserves (0.83%). To help inform progress, earlier this year Marine Conservation Institute added a new tool, “Campaign Tracker” that helps people explore the progress of global marine protected area campaigns and initiatives. It shows where governments and conservation groups are working to designate new marine protections around the world.
Continue reading Marine Conservation Institute Tracks Global MPAs
On Monday, Nov. 17, at the World Parks Congress in Sydney Australia, noted New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman, co-moderated with NRDC’s Director of the International Ocean Programme, Lisa Speer, a special panel featuring Environment Ministers Greg Hunt and Edna Molewa, respectively from Australia and South Africa. Other notable guests on the panel included Global Ocean Commissioner Robert Hill, and the Executive Secretary of Guatemala’s National Commission on Protected Areas, Benedicto Lucas. The audience was filled with numerous marine experts, including Dr. Sylvia Earle, and Dan Laffoley, Marine Vice-Chair for the World Commission on Protected Areas.
Continue reading Thomas Friedman interviews Environment Ministers at WPC
High Seas Alliance members will be participating in a number of activities during the World Parks Congress (WPC) taking place in Sydney Australia from 12-19 November. This landmark global forum meets once every decade and sets the agenda on protected areas — for both land and sea — for the next decade.
Continue reading Join us live during the High Seas Google Hangout: Championing the High Seas
This winter the High Seas Alliance is building a Wave of Change for the high seas and we want you to join in! Why a Wave of Change? Simple, it’s to raise public awareness about the dire state of our ocean and the urgent need for better protection and governance of the high seas.
At the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), on September 3rd, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Global Ocean Commission (GOC) jointly hosted a side event, SIDS and Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, about the implications for SIDS of the proposed UNCLOS Implementing Agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. Panelists included GOC Commissioner Robert Hill, of the Global Ocean Commission, H.E. Ms. Inga Rhonda King, Permanent Representative of St. Vincent and the Grenadines to the United Nations, Tevita Suka Mangisi, Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN of the Kingdom of Tonga, and Duncan Currie of the High Seas Alliance. The session was opened by Remi Parmentier, GOC Deputy Executive Secretary and moderated by Joan Yang of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Continue reading Pew Charitable Trusts and Global Ocean Commission Host SIDS Side Event
On Sunday evening, September 21, as leaders from around the world gathered in New York City at the start of the UN General Assembly’s 69th session, Global Ocean Commissioner co-chair Trevor Manuel, together with National Geographic explorer-in-residence Dr. Sylvia Earle, delivered a petition to His Excellency UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson at an event organized by The Ocean Elders. Reaching over 260,000 signatures, the petition asks UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to support a call to the UN General Assembly to initiate negotiations for a high seas agreement to protect ocean health for the future.
Continue reading 260,000 People Call for a New International Agreement to Protect the High Seas
