see more shaston, old and india up towards nicole. ah, a journey of discovery. and one now manian mans exploration of his religious heritage. how has the big touchy face survived for 700 years despite of all the time history of oppression? alger 0 world tells the story of a religion that has over 7000000 followers in the footsteps of my big touchy ancestors on algebra. how to protect the high seas home to millions of species and crucial to the world we live in. but from over fishing from cp mining there threatened by over exploitation and a global treaty preserve them. this is inside story. ah

hello, welcome to the program. i'm nick clark, international waters, the planets last, lawless wilderness. but they're also a vast, thriving ecosystem. critical to every living thing and providing half the oxygen we breathed. for the 5th time of trying in 15 years, delegates from a 193 un member states have met in new york. that arguing over how to formalize a treaty of the high sea to protect the deep oceans. after 2 weeks negotiations, the talks went way over their deadline. there, especially concerned about the impact of unregulated, deep sea mining and factory fishing and access to valuable genetic resources. and aid a big sticking point is how to secure a fair access to marine resources for all united nations. j fantastic terrace. urge them to seize the moments he said this, tracy could ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological

diversity. over 2 thirds of all life sustaining ocean space that can help ensure resources are accessed and utilized for the benefit of all humanity. it can provide an adequate framework for the use of marine protected areas to conserve and sustainably manage vital habitats. in species, it can make sure that environmental impacts of activities are assessed and fully considered in decision making. so why is this treaty just so important? well, rules currently and applied to a distance of 200 nautical miles from coastline beyond that lie these international waters where there's little or no governance and the treaty would govern human activity. on an under the high seas, it aims to an unregulated practices say like on sustainable fishing and clarify what resources can be taken. and from where the are, let's take this all me can join,

i guess. now in london, it will mccollum the co executive director of greenpeace. u. k. and new york is me to eps head of the ocean team at the international union for conservation of nature . and in stock is robert black research at the stock home resilient center will welcome to all of you will, could i start the 1st of all? so let's explore why we need a treaty. we've touched on a little bit, but the high seas are and by no one and by everyone. so why do we need jurisdiction over these waters that are out of mind and out of sight? well, that's precisely the problem is we live on a blue planet, and yet half of this planet is in these international waters, as you say, out of like an out of mind. and we just haven't been paying them the attention that they need. we know that the oceans under the most incredible pressure, whether it be from climate change from over fishing from mining, and we know that it can continue to sustain these pressures. we're losing ocean

species at twice the rate as we are species on land. so this treaty provides us with this amazing hopeful moment where countries could come together and actually say enough is enough. we have to reverse this trend. we have to stop putting in place the rules that will allow us to treat this global commons with respect with the attention it deserves and mean at the ations, a crucial element in the whole planetary system. we all need them every living thing. yes that, that is absolutely true. i mean we've seen untrusted decline and marine by diversity, but also a lot of the human pressures really affecting our ocean, whether it's over fishing or plastic pollution, but also very much accessory by that by climate change. and the un secretary general last year declared an ocean emergency and we need to take this urgency emergency with take trades that take a tackle it with her. it great urgency and i think this is,

this treaty is really needed it's. it's been in discussion for about 20 years and, and then and 5 years and 5 rounds of negotiations. and we're now we're at the a resume session with the really to conclude. so we need this treaty urgently in order to ask, we had to really create a framework for countries to work together to protect. we've come together already at the end of last year, the world came together with a very ambitious agenda of protecting 30 percent of our land cutlass sees a coastal areas in seas. so if we aren't to achieve that objective, we can do it with the high seas. and we need this at legally binding instrument to really create that legal, holistic cover the gaps and the legal framework to actually establish marine protected areas and legally to tackle marie a bite diversity protection and climate change action

a will be. this is the success that was seen in montreal with 30 by 30. how's, how does that tie in to, to this treaty? well, at the moment, like i said, half this planet is, is what this treat you're trying to set rules for that you can't really achieve protecting at least 30 percent of it unless we have this treaty is, is absolutely crucial milestone to reaching that goal. and 30 by 30 it, it sounds wildly ambitious, but it's exactly what kind to tell us is needed to help the ocean restore to help rebound health, to be more resilient to climate change. the treaty is an absolutely essential tool and helping deliver all of that. and isn't well, one of the issues in this whole debate, how to establish and maintain m p a is in areas that aren't governed by any individual country. you know, looking at it especially you'd say that it's going to be a challenge. exactly in 2019 we sail from polls poll from the art to,

to be taught to visiting. for me, there is on the high seas that we want to be protected. we saw some absolutely astonishing wildlife out there. we met coastal communities along the way, who are so dependent on this wild life and it's heartbreaking to think that there is absolutely no way for us to protect all of this amazing bio diversity out there . so we need the streets, we need it now, we're already at the start of 2023. that is just 7 years left to live on that really ambitious package that was agreed in montreal last year by governments. so this treaty and, and agreeing it right now is so important. i mean, it says this is all about the sustainable management device resources, and that's precisely what is on the threat without some form of governance. what is basically the holistic and an equipped to both management of the ocean and its resources. so this treaty is an international legally binding treaty. i'm factory for conservation and sustainable use of marine results,

but biological diversity. so it's actually a package deal, so it really looks at several different elegy elements. so for example, i'm creating marine protected areas and the high seas and not just re protected areas, but also network of marine protected areas. as well as how are you going to look at the capacity development capacity building and the transfer marine technology. and also how would you actually conduct a conduct and environmental impact assessment. and finally, also looking at marine genetic resources and how and the access to and, and equitable benefit sharing of marine connected resources. that is kind of the package deal that's being discussed here. and of course there are several cross cutting issues as well. and a robust install, kermit the buyer prospecting and for marine genetic resources is the big issue as

meter is talking about the and big pharma basis. tell us more about as big pharma once a piece of this action. why do they want it wasn't useful? yeah, well really kind of the thing that everyone is hoping for is to discover another aspirin in the ocean and some really important drug that's going to benefit humanity. this is what the big pharma companies are dreaming up. and once in a blue moon, they find it. so in the case of marine drugs, they're about a dozen that have gotten f d a approval and are now on the market. and if you want to think about how much they're worth, if you look at just 5 of those drugs, and over the past 10 years, they've gotten sales and licensing revenues of $12100000000.00 us dollars. so this is the sort of dollar sign that's on people's minds when they think about marine kinetic resources. i should emphasize though, all those drugs they're from are in genetic resources from within national jurisdiction. they're not from areas be a national jurisdiction. so there's

a big question mark for everyone. what's out there? what that work? nobody knows it's exactly what's tricky to negotiate about. right, and well, that's the thing is that we could find many, many great things of incredible value to science, but also of incredible value to, to big corporations. absolutely. it would be incredible value times 10, mostly incredible value to cooperation. i think from a greenpeace perspective, certainly a civil society perspective, we'd like to make sure that whatever is found, the benefits said, equally amongst communities, all of the globe, more than half of this plan depends on the ocean. so their primary source of food, coastal communities everywhere, are struggling with the pressures of the ocean. we think that they deserve some of the benefit of anything that's found out. i mean, to explore that a little bit further for us if you would, how would you make this equitable? it's an enormous challenge, isn't it? absolutely. i mean, i think multilateralism and in itself and we do have that and global north global

sound divide. and i think that often comes down to perhaps a lack of trust al, which is, you know, not a fable conditions when you are going to do carry out nickel negotiations. and i think also what you said, and what robert was saying in terms of this is kind of in the futures, we don't really know who it might hits allotted, has or not. and so it's not, but you know, they want to make sure that you can have, you know, and not only access, but also, and there is a kind of a legal certainty that they can actually share those benefits and equitable ways. i could think that also really comes down to is also lots of this tree to, through out. i mean, marine genetic resources is not the only part that will deal with finances, but it really comes down to, i think more and you know, principle of equity and solidarity. and i think we've heard that throughout. and so of course, there has been a lot of concessions made, i would say from, from, from all sides in order to get a landing sound for these different areas to have been negotiated for such

a long time. and it's not just about equity. well, it's also about, you know, potential environmental damage in the v potion. we know more about malls as they say, than we did about the potion and the potential damage that can be done by extraction . absolutely, i'm one of the, one of the things that the treaty could offer is the much more holistic approach to industries that are operating out there in the us to an approach that would require them to actually do proper environmental impact assessments that we can really assess what risks were placing this largely unknown ecosystem under the deep ocean is, is also the world's largest carbon. so it's got so many new species, almost every time you dive down there, you're going to be discovering something new. and yet we still seem to be in a position where we're about to let mining happen, then it just in the coming months, decisions could happen. that would allow companies to go out there and not exploiting the deep sea. yeah, robert, let's explore that

a little bit further. this issue of deep sea mining, every possibility of deep sea gold rush to mine, metals. tell us what's down there, why mining companies so interested in getting their hands on it? well, let me start by something my good friend and colleague in the noise that she says when you think about the deep sea. think about a giant flat screen tv and only 3 or 4 pixels on that flat screen are working. that's our knowledge of the deep ocean. it's really limited every time we go down there as well as we learn new thing. but i would refer back to something nina was just saying, and the we've been talking about b, b and j for 20 years. now. what has happened in 20 years? maybe say that that is that this high c st. exactly right? yes. and in those 20 years, what's happened with biotechnology? well, it's been moving at light speed. it's exactly what the united nations does not do. so what has happened? well, the cost of sequencing around megabytes of dna, it's followed by $7.00 orders of magnitude in that time from over $6000.00 for one

base pair to less than one cent to day. that's monumental. and what's been happening in parallel is that you have these massive exponentially growing databases of genetic sequence information, the language of life. and this is growing exponentially, doubling in size every 18 months for the last 30 years. this is the sort of stuff the un really needs to be moving quickly. it needs to wrap up treaties that needs to really be on top of these things. and it just isn't. i mean, this is one of the hardest things to negotiate with unclear values. fast moving science amps, no one really knowing how to navigate this equitable ship sharing a benefit to something we don't really know exactly what the, what the value will be made or would you like to react to that as the moving past is not something that you and does easily, you know, for sure, i mean that's, that's not what the united nations it's known for. and i think that really this treat needs to be strong future proof,

which is that also means climate proof. but i think what it has to do, it has to have enough modalities for doing that. so when it's the fair and equitable sharing of benefits for marine natural resources and the digital sequencing information, it needs to have these kind of provisions that are, you know, workable and the fair modalities for sharing of both monetary and non monetary benefits. so we can still kind of the mechanism, but we don't know. i think a lot of this has been a challenge and it's quite interesting to see that it was not really anticipated before that. that was going to be the main issue. what we're talking about today is always talking about fisheries and making sure that you know fisheries, but not excluded from this to, to because that received the major threats and, you know, and we all sent so quite far into the negotiation round. it actually became really, really obvious. that's marines natural resources and the benefit access and benefit

sharing was the major sticking points. so, well can we just returned to this issue of mighty and you mentioned how in exploration is already beyond likenesses may be granted later this year. it's really going to come to the, for, as this goes on at deep irony here is know that the reason why they want to go down there is to, you know, great, basically create more feasible batteries and so forth at which is for the environmental good. but giving them is not well, so they say, i mean actually the speak to some of the car companies and the tech companies would have and greenpeace, that in close communication with them the company. so and making these products on asking deep sea mining companies to go down there and explore. in fact, some of them like b, b, m, w, have actually committed to not source from c mining. most companies and tech companies. we speak to actually looking to move away from these materials altogether towards a much more close where they are re using old materials. because ultimately anything where you're mining and the thing where you're extracting new, opens and new frontier opens

a whole new set of ethical considerations that they just don't want to get involved with me to you mentioned fisheries. we've heard much about see much about the over fishing and insure war to tell us more about what goes on our side now. mind out in the high seas. yes, i think there is some, you know, misconception in terms of m, you know, there is that kind of gap in terms of the whole management of, of fisheries and the government ocean governance as a whole. and i think for fisheries at the moment, there are another agreement called the united nations fish stocks agreement and has a structure of regional fisheries management organization. there are also kind of responsible for, for managing the activities of fisheries. but we know that our oceans is still very much over fished, i'm at today, and there is, there needs to be a very strong improvement. so i think the house been an ongoing affair from the fishing industry that this treaty would then actually override those regional

fisheries. body and which is not what is trying to do instead is trying to strengthen what's already there. but bringing in what was said earlier, a more holistic view to make sure that you know fisheries as a managed sustainably. i'm so again, that comes back to perhaps again, a lack of trust. and i think the big fair is that i'm with gates reached is 3020 at 30 by 30 targets of protecting at least 30 percent of us, or ocean by 2030. we're going to be closing at large parts of the ocean in the high seas for marine protection. so i think there is that kind of misconception and which was really in the beginning of these think i was jason's really taking up a lot of space. but we have to manage our fishery sustainable. we have to protect by diversity. of course, we have to talk about sustainable use. but meant conservation comes 1st and we'll discuss about v m p a's of these marine protected areas. it's interesting isn't it

because it's been shown that once you have an mpa, then fish talks around them and outside of the much we increase. absolutely there. the main reason to crate marine takes areas is because the, there's an overwhelming burden of evidence. these are perhaps not a silver bullet, but as close as you can get to one in the ocean, they really help increase the number of fish increase the range of different kinds of species in an area, and then those fish get bigger, they get older, they get fatter, they have more babies and those babies swim out beyond the boundaries of marine protected areas. so we're worried about food security. if we're worried about communities living on the coast to might, who might do subsistence fishing? if we're worried about the future of the ocean and the need for having of many different creatures in there as possible to think as much carbon down to the bottom . as we can, the marine protected areas really are one of those crucial tools. and without this treaty we just can't create them in international waters. i mean, as i said,

this is the 5th attempt, this is the renewed 5th attempt to getting this done. why is it so hard? it just seems getting in the way of progress it. well, 1st of all, there were full rounds of negotiation. but then there was due to the global pandemic. and i think that the, the pandemic really kind of slow down it because it's absolutely impossible to do diplomatic relations over soon as this impersonated re happened. so there was a long, long break. and, you know, the world looked very, very different. when come out, it is also a very different climates both geopolitically than it was a couple of years ago. so i think that this kind of, that the long break that happened due to the pandemic made it like you can't just go back and pick up. and i probably, that could have been even more into sessional work done. so they had to pick up when they started and you know, some have changed, but government, political positions might not be the same negotiators,

et cetera. so i think that that kind of played a role. so it was assumed that yes, they needed another round and the last time we got so so close and basically say, while all we would need is a couple more days to kind of get it done. so and then again, they was received in session which an additional 2 weeks of negotiation that was taken place in new york and the political, they spin and $51.00 countries that have sign up to an high ambition coalition to really behind b, b and j. that the high seas treaty, also known as the b, b, and j by diversity beyond national jurisdiction. so yes, deployment has as that slightly nightly changed. i think those are some of the key factor, the pandemic, the them, them, the, in the situation between russia and ukraine invasion, which had this one year anniversary taking place at the same time. i was also concurrently here in the building important meetings taking place. so i think those

of them, some of the key factors that really make it even more difficult at showa, although the usual suspects are good in the way of getting things done. i think that's what they do here is actually creating it. and it's not a legally binding instrument, and there, after there will be conference of party like we have now after the paris agreement . there's annual climate change meeting. well, comes together. we want to make sure that those meeting have really empowered conference parties. and i think what we are conscious of is that not having one or 2 countries blocking. so that's my is very important. that voting does not require consensus. there are, for example, 3 marine protected areas that been pending in the southern ocean and it's blocked year after year by one or 2 states. and this means that it cannot move forward. so that's why it's so important to have the right modality, so that we can make progress. because if everything needs to be by consensus, we will never have that purpose and advanced as much as we want. a will, once

a treaty is put into place and is formally adopted and formalized, and them this, this governance applies across the high seas in whatever shape or form it, it comes to be. who will then police it? how do we know that nations are adhering to this new high seas treaty? well, not in the same way that lots of international agreements covering the high seas police themselves. so if we already have shipping, for example, the intestinal maritime organization, every, every industry has got its own bespoke way of policing and monitoring and ultimately flag state. so those are the countries responsible for the industry or the bo tool, whatever it is going on out, there are the ones who are responsible holding those boats, lowes industries accountable. and now i think is we're saying we, it is a vast area and it is going to take in special collaboration. and that's been one

of the really key focuses for the treaty is how to increase that collaboration, the internationalism, to make sure that is possible to police these areas. and of course, every marine protected area proposal if it comes in, will have its own monitoring and enforcement plan attached to it. a robot you focus on the sustainable management of those resources. he confident once that a high seas tracy is formalized, that will be the instrument by which, you know, this sustainability can be managed. yeah. what this is that this treaty is going to provide that framework that requires transparency and traceability and all knowledge for everyone involved with bio prospecting with. i mean by technology that they will have full knowledge of what's happening in areas be on national diction. monitoring, this is going to be very, very tricky. as i was saying earlier, that space is moving very quickly in terms of the find that's being developed today

. so it's not something that they will dry on the paper and it will be quickly dated probably. but there will need to be continuous focus on monitoring and of course meant also with mary by a technology based on genetic research from areas be on national jurisdiction as the me to do thing where this kind of inflection point now whereby that you know, with progress here and you know, progress that we saw in montreal just before the end of last year in december. that we could be on the right track or on a better track to sustainability and managing our ations. yeah, i think, i think one thing that's quite all this hair is that one of the sticking points have been you know, having that up front investments. and you know, if you look at a national budgets, i mean if there is a disaster or a major urgency, there's usually not a problem to at or announce big packages, whether education, et cetera. and i think still need to do little bit more to really still recognise,

you know, that the, the general knowledge and the common understanding of that boy to role of ocean and how we are all dependent on it. and now we are starting to see, for example, in the climate change debate. now not just talking about the climate to buy diversity nexus, but really recognizing the important role of the ocean, both in terms of climate change, mitigation and adaptation. so i think it is coming together and i think that we will welcome different synergies between these multilateral environmental agreements. so we can move forward by policy m, it is essential that is important and to have this legal framework a but it is slower movement. what i think we need to see is looking at the science and the scientific and you know, the merging size, whether it's more em signed to big information about marine heat, waves, old cetera, is to make sure that there's not a long time lag before it gets into policy, and we're talking about solutions, deployment change. we're all looking to the ocean and we already now the policy

there is lagging behind because, you know, the private sector move in and talking about c o 2, removal et cetera of the ocean. so i think that we need to do everything we can and i use in is hoping to be a bit of that science and policy bridge as well to make sure that you know, you know, those in the right indicators and getting me know, science to policies i think that's really key to accelerate that because it cannot be that long time line between the science. i mean look at climate change. it doesn't have because we can't afford to wait tickets because before action is taken or him out of his number to grow stood of our planetary systems relative of the crate. so sort of defensive export. i. this is got to be good news. i will have to leave it there. thank you so much. so all the for joining us today at wil mccullen mean apps and robert black. thank you for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website out zera dot com. and for further discussion, go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside story. or you can of course,

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