• Recently over 60 countries signed a UN Ocean Treaty to conserve biodiversity on the high seas. It’s the first time that action will be taken against unregulated use of resources in this ungoverned space.

Background

• The “high seas” are all ocean areas which aren’t under a specific country’s direct ownership or regulation. They make up two-thirds of Earth’s oceans, providing 90 per cent of the habitat available for life.
• 90 per cent of the world’s marine fish stocks are now fully exploited, overexploited or depleted. 
• 10 per cent of the total global fish catch is from the high seas, the unregulated nature of fishing there has a harmful impact on marine life.

Important Highlights of Treaty

• Adopted by the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), the “high seas” treaty aims at taking stewardship of the ocean on behalf of present and future generations, in line with the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
• The new agreement contains 75 articles that aim at protecting, caring for, and ensuring the responsible use of the marine environment, maintaining the integrity of ocean ecosystems, and conserving the inherent value of marine biological diversity.
• It also aims at strengthening resilience and contains provisions based on the polluter-pays principle as well as mechanisms for disputes.
• The treaty underlines the importance of capacity building and the transfer of marine technology, including the development and strengthening of institutional capacity and national regulatory frameworks or mechanisms.
• Some of the goals and targets include Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, which aims at, among other things, preventing and significantly reducing marine pollution of all kinds by 2025, and ending overfishing through science-based management plans in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)

• Set of 17 global goals established by the UN in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
• SDGs are comprehensive than earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Some major SDGs and its purpose

United Nations

• Founded: 24 October 1945
• UN DAY: 24 October
• Headquarters: New York (USA)
• Secretary General: António Guterres
• India’s efforts for Conserving Marine resources 
• Wild Life Protection Act of India (1972)
• The Biological Diversity Act of India, 2002 
• Biological Diversity Rules 2004
• Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY)