GENEVA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on Tuesday urged governments to protect the world's oceans by finalizing a long-awaited High Seas Treaty at the United Nations (UN) in New York this March.
The first-ever treaty on high seas biodiversity would provide a globally recognized mechanism to designate marine protected areas, and is crucial in order to achieve the goal of protecting at least 30 percent of the world's oceans, Jessica Battle, WWF's senior global ocean governance and policy expert told Xinhua in a video interview.
At the Fifth International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC5) which took place in Vancouver, Canada, from Feb. 3-9, the WWF called on policymakers to accelerate global ocean protection from 8 percent to 30 percent within eight years.
Previously, at COP15 in Montreal in December, the goal of protecting and conserving at least 30 percent of the world's marine and coastal areas was adopted by 196 countries under the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
"China played a very strong role at COP15, making sure that we did get an agreement by the 196 parties to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030," said Battle, who will attend the negotiations in New York.
In a resolution in December 2017, the UN General Assembly decided to convene an intergovernmental conference to draw up the text of an international legally binding instrument on the conservation and use of marine biodiversity.
Waters that lie beyond national jurisdictions, known as the high seas, comprise nearly two-thirds of the ocean's area. However, only about 1 percent of this huge swath of the planet is protected, WWF said.
Battle said the treaty would be ratified when 30 countries sign up to it, and it is then implemented into national legislation.
It is critical that the treaty should enter into force quickly, Battle said.
Produced by Xinhua Global Service
