Inspirational Story of the Week: New UN Treaty for the High Seas was Finally Drafted...

An Article from the Good News Network...

To ensure the conservation of species and their environment, a new United Nations treaty on the sustainable use and protection of the High Seas has finally been drafted after a two-week round-the-clock marathon of talks in New York.

The agreed framework has overhauled the requirements of environmental impact assessments for natural resource extraction and set a universal standard for the procedure of conducting them and reporting findings.

Furthermore, the treaty would grant the parties to the treaty the right to establish conservation zones and protected areas in international waters, where no country would normally be able to enforce law.

The main efforts were carried out by the EU, UK, US, and China, and were rapidly accelerated since the COP15 summit in Montreal last year. However, discussions of the additions to the Convention on the Law of the Sea have been ongoing since 2004, reports New Scientist.

Two years ago, the concept of protecting 30% of the land and oceans on Earth for the purpose of conservation was advanced at one of the summits on the parties to the Paris Climate Agreement, and many conservationists see this new treaty as the best hope of achieving that landmark.

GNN has reported on findings that when the entirety of a marine ecosystem is preserved, fishing industries benefit even if a season only lasts a short period, Among the hopes of the signees will be that diminishing catch rates for prized fish like tuna can be permanently reversed.