After decades of negotiation, the high seas treaty is finally reality.
First adopted by the United Nations in 2023, the treaty was officially ratified by the required 60 countries on Friday. This historic agreement will pave the way to protect international waters — Earth’s least-governed ecosystems — which face numerous threats from overfishing, deep sea mining, climate change and pollution.
“This is a major win for our oceans and all of us who depend on them,” said Monica Medina, Arnhold Fellow at Conservation International. “The high seas belong both to no one and all of us. We have the rare chance to stop the loss of nature before we lose it forever.”
The high seas — waters beyond any nation’s jurisdiction — cover nearly two-thirds of Earth’s ocean, yet only 1 percent is protected. This vast and largely unexplored expanse holds more than 90 percent of ocean habitat and some of the planet’s richest biodiversity.
The treaty enshrines the belief that there are areas of the ocean that we must protect as a human race to survive, Medina said.
“People need a healthy ocean, our way of life depends on it,” she said. “The high seas regulate currents and help keep ocean temperatures in balance — and may even hold the cures to human diseases,” she said. “It is entirely possible to balance their protection with their ability to provide for our way of life.”
Now that the agreement has been ratified by 60 countries, it will become binding in 120 days. It will enable the creation of marine protected areas in waters beyond national jurisdictions, guarantee environmental impact assessments of activities like fishing and deep sea mining and ensure scientific discoveries from the high seas are equitably shared among countries.
The high seas treaty has been years in the making, going all the way back to the 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention. And it comes at a critical juncture: Without the high seas, it would be virtually impossible for nations to meet their goal of protecting 30 percent of the planet’s seas by the year 2030.
Conservation International, a founding member of the Blue Nature Alliance and the Coral Reefs of the High Seas Coalition, has supported the treaty’s ratification and implementation, as well as helped shape how it can be put into practice, including identifying priority areas for protection.
One of these areas is the Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges, a series of deep-sea mountain ranges off the coasts of Peru and Chile — a key migration corridor for sharks, whales and turtles, and home to reef-building corals, which support thriving underwater gardens. These waters also hold deep cultural significance: Polynesian voyagers crisscrossed them for thousands of years as they explored from the West Pacific to Rapa Nui — the Indigenous name for Easter Island.
According to Medina, this historic moment is also when the hard, but necessary work begins.
“For the first time, the high seas are on the map for protection,” she said. “What comes next is up to us all — and the ocean’s future is brighter for it.”
Further reading:
Mary Kate McCoy is a staff writer at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates. Also, please consider supporting our critical work.
