once the book came out, i felt incredibly free. i felt a huge weight off my shoulders. a historic agreement to protect the world s oceans has been approved, after ten years of talks. the high seas treaty aims to safeguard marine life in 30% of areas that don t belong to any single country. marine life is at risk from climate change, pollution and overfishing, but only about 1% of these areas are currently protected. the deal is being hailed as a massive step by climate activists as our reporter esme stalla rd reports. the ship has reached the shore. cheering and applause it took all night, but countries from around the world finally agreed on how to protect the high seas. we will formally adopt the text in all six official languages of the united nations. high seas are international waters that aren t controlled by any nation. they make up two thirds of the world s oceans and play host to most of our planet s marine life some two million species. until now, all countries ha
once the book came out, i felt incredibly free. i felt a huge weight off my shoulders. a historic agreement to protect the world s oceans has been approved, after ten years of talks. the high seas treaty aims to safeguard marine life in 30% of areas that don t belong to any single country. marine life is at risk from climate change, pollution and overfishing, but only about 1% of these areas are currently protected. the deal is being hailed as a massive step by climate activists as our reporter esme stalla rd reports. the ship has reached the shore. cheering and applause
it took all night, but countries from around the world finally agreed on how to protect the high seas. we will formally adopt the text in all six official languages of the united nations. high seas are international waters that aren t controlled by any nation. they make up two thirds of the world s oceans and play host to most of our planet s marine life some two million species. until now, all countries had a right to fish, ship and research in these areas, but it s left the animals and plants living there vulnerable. around 10% of monitored species are at risk of extinction. i think that this treaty that will lay the groundwork for creating 30% of the ocean into marine sanctuaries that cannot be fished in is so important. we have to save these creatures. talks were deadlocked for years, mostly over how genetic material
from plants and animals found in the high seas should be shared between nations. several important drugs, including treatments for covid, hiv and cancer, were developed from marine life. the potential for profit is huge. but no one knows how much ocean resources are truly worth, nor how they could be split. it s a little bit hard to even wrap our heads around how big and how distant these areas are. if you imagine, like, a big high definition wide screen tv and if only, like, three or four of the pixels on that giant screen are working, that s kind of our knowledge of the deep ocean. we don t know so much of what s going on. countries will need to meet again to formally adopt the treaty. but for many, now there will be much relief. esme stallard, bbc news. let s speak to the bbc world service environment correspondent navin singh khadka.
it s taken a long time to get here, hasn t it? but there seem to be a very lot of happy people today about this announcement. yes very lot of happy people today about this announcement. this announcement. yes indeed. it remains to this announcement. yes indeed. it remains to be this announcement. yes indeed. it remains to be seen this announcement. yes indeed. it remains to be seen how this announcement. yes indeed. it remains to be seen how actually . this announcement. yes indeed. it l remains to be seen how actually this will be implemented, and just to make it clear, this is yet to be adopted. the legalities, that is where they will have to work. and actually, the sharing of resources, actually, the sharing of resources, a massive controversial issue, how will it be implemented? yet to be seen. and again, things like deep sea mining, will that be really assessed before actions happen? it s already a controversial issue. things like that, yet to be seen. 50 things like that