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While IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee grabs the headlines, shipping has yet to play any role in drafting a new international treaty that could redefine how we use the oceans.

Delegates were unable to bridge the gaps on issues including: the scope of the instrument; whether benefit-sharing would be carried on a monetary or non-monetary basis; and the overarching principles governing the future international legally binding instrument.

UN treaty negotiations on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) have emphasised the need to be inclusive, and to ensure the proposed new instrument is empowered to improve overall governance of the high seas.

Scientists have laid out a strategy to protect nearly a third of the world’s oceans by creating a massive network of sanctuaries. Click on the link below to read the full article. 

At least 30% of international waters could soon form part of a protected global network of marine reserves to help save sea life from extinction. Click on the link below to read the full article. 

Any new treaty to improve governance of the high seas must ensure healthy resilient Oceans and seas, promote greater coherence, and complement the relevant existing instruments, frameworks and sectoral bodies. Click on the link below to read the full article. 

Remarks made by the Pacific Forum’s secretary general Dame Meg Taylor at a recent conference on high seas biodiversity are perfectly timed and signal a considerable challenge for small island developing states (SIDS) in the Pacific. Click on the link below to read the full article. 

Pacific officials preparing for a major international meeting on the international treaty on the high seas must remember that they negotiate on behalf of the people of the Blue Pacific who greatly depend upon the ocean and its resources, says Pacific Ocean Commissioner Dame Meg Taylor.

Information about how marine animals move through the oceans has become vitally important as efforts progress to create a global plan for securing sustainable fish stocks in the high seas. Click on the link below to read the full article.