“The High Seas Treaty opens the path for humankind to finally provide protection to marine life across vast swathes of the ocean,” says Dr Bruno Oberle, director-general of IUCN, which produces the Red List of Threatened Species.
“Its adoption will close a significant gap in international law and offer a framework for governments to work together to protect global ocean health, climate resilience and the socio-economic well-being and food security of billions of people. We stand ready to support its implementation.”
After at least two decades of campaigning, negotiation and weighing of scientific evidence, the world has just crossed a formal threshold for ocean conservation, as the High Seas Treaty reached the number of ratifications required for it to enter into force.
In September Morocco became the 60th nation to ratify the agreement, which is therefore set to become international law on 17 January, 2026.
“Countries must now ratify it as quickly as possible to bring it into force so that we can protect our ocean, build our resilience to climate change and safeguard the lives and livelihoods of billions of people,” commented Rebecca Hubbard, director of the High Seas Alliance, welcoming the development as an “historic moment for ocean protection”.
Aims of the treaty
The agreement, officially known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) – and also referred to as the Global Ocean Treaty – addresses four major areas that directly affect the health of those parts of the ocean beyond the reach of any single country’s laws.
Firstly, it provides a legal mechanism to designate new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in swathes of international waters not previously under strong legal protection. The hope is that these zones can limit harmful activities and allow ecosystems to recover.
Secondly, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) will need to be carried out to subject new industrial activities such as seabed mining, deep-sea drilling or large-scale fishing operations to more rigorous assessment of their potential ecological effects.
The third element requires fair benefit-sharing of marine genetic resources by governing discoveries of organisms with potential scientific or pharmaceutical value such as sponges, corals and microbes – a matter of concern for research dives and bioprospecting concerns.
Finally, many developing nations host some of the most treasured dive-sites but lack sufficient resources to manage or protect them. The treaty includes provisions to help improve monitoring, enforcement and scientific capacity globally.
Divers will hope that benefits include richer underwater biodiversity, more marine-life sightings, healthier corals and clearer water, because the long-term sustainability of diving tourism is at stake.
Some 33 million dives occur annually around the world and research indicates that better-protected sites attract more divers, improve revenue for local communities and can offset the cost of protection.
More urgently, it is hoped that the development will lead to greater resilience to threats such as climate change and pollution. Marine ecosystems less damaged by overfishing, habitat destruction or deep-sea interference stand a better chance of withstanding heat stress, acidification and other climate‐driven pressures.
Currently, much goes on with limited oversight beyond national jurisdictions, and the treaty’s framework promises clearer rules. Greater certainty should offer potentially better protection for remote reef systems.
With the treaty in force, the hope is that there will be greater international funding for enforcement, research, mapping and monitoring, all essential for safeguarding dive-sites and helpful for local conservation groups.
Reality at sea
That’s the optimistic side of the story. Although the treaty appears powerful on paper, the dive community and environmental campaigners have long raised concerns about the challenges of securing effective enforcement and monitoring in remote open-ocean areas.
There is also concern about the potentially damaging time-lag before positive effects can be felt, with coral-bleaching, overfishing and plastic pollution already so entrenched, and about non-ratification or weak participation by key nations.
Some major ocean-using countries have signed but not ratified the treaty, or are slow in putting protective laws into national policies, and the treaty’s strength depends on wide uptake.
The UK, for example, signed up two years ago but has still to ratify the treaty, though it is in the process of doing so through the introduction of the relevant bill in Parliament, promised by the marine minister by the end of 2025.
The USA has also signed but not ratified the treaty, and will require two-thirds majority Senate approval to do so. Having failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the foundational framework for the agreement, the USA is not a party to the International Seabed Authority, which oversees seabed mining in international waters.
Even so, US assistant secretary of state Monica Medina said of Morocco’s ratification: “Today the world came together to protect the ocean for the benefit of our children and grandchildren.”
While the treaty requires impact assessments, it does not by itself ban harmful activities such as deep-sea mining, and industrial interests are lobbying heavily to access genetic resources and mining zones in fragile deep-sea habitats, many of which remain unexplored.
Many developing nations will need financial and scientific support to enforce protection, monitor marine health and manage MPAs effectively, circumventing the danger of “paper parks”.
The outlook
Citizen-scientist divers, operators, local communities and marine conservation NGOs are likely to be required to play an increasing role in identifying sites, monitoring biodiversity and advocating for protection. Meanwhile the conservation bodies that have fought for the treaty are taking a generally positive stance.
“The High Seas Treaty is a turning point for ocean protection and restoration,” commented WWF International. “The ocean cannot wait. It has taken nearly 20 years to adopt this treaty. Over that time period, industrial fishing has taken a heavy toll… Nations must now swiftly ratify this treaty and start identifying areas of the high seas for protection immediately.”
“This is a historic day for conservation and a sign that in a divided world, protecting nature and people can triumph over geopolitics,” said Greenpeace. One of the first places requiring urgent protection is the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, it says.
“This is a breakthrough moment for the ocean, marine wildlife, and the millions of people who depend on them,” was the reaction of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAE). “For ocean giants like whales, sharks and turtles that have roamed these waters for millions of years, it marks the start of a new era in global ocean conservation.
“With the treaty’s entry into force, governments now have a critical opportunity to establish marine protected areas on the high seas, close governance gaps, and build resilience in the face of the climate crisis.”
At last a great article that highlights the challenges to the BBNJ treaty implementation!
However, one of the most serious gaps in international marine conservation is the almost total ABSENCE OF THE DIVER COMMUNITY in the discussions and decisions. We are a millions-strong group of stakeholders but very few, if any, of our representative organizations show up at very important international treaties to defend our interest in the conservation and non-extractive use of marine biodiversity.
Time for the diving community to take on this responsibility and make itself heard!
The scarcity of diver reactions was apparent when looking through conservationist bodies’ responses to the Morocco ratification
Very informative, thank you!