High Seas

Understanding how marine species use the high seas: The Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean (MiCO) system

September 27, 2017 | Policy Forum, Ecology and Biodiversity, High Seas

By Guillermo Ortuño Crespo, Nereus Program Fellow at Duke University

Due to their wide-ranging swimming behaviors, migratory fish, marine mammal, seabird and sea turtle species experience a variety, and an increasing amount, of anthropogenic pressures over the course of their lives. These threats, including climate change, overfishing, and marine pollution, combined with conservation strategies that largely fail to consider spatial connectivity over the life cycle, are resulting in declining populations worldwide.

Step forward in protecting the high seas, despite competing interests

August 4, 2017 | Policy Forum, High Seas

The high seas — also called international waters — comprise 64% of the world’s oceans and 45% of the earth’s surface. They are shared by the world but governed by no one country. That means that the incredible biodiversity of the high seas, from seaweeds to fish to sharks, is not currently protected.

POLICY BRIEF: Deep, distant and dynamic: critical considerations for incorporating the open-ocean into a new BBNJ treaty

July 28, 2017 | Latest News, Policy Briefs, High Seas

To ensure a robust new International Legally Binding Instrument (ILBI) for the high seas, adequate attention will need to be placed on how the governance structures can address both fragile, static deep-sea ecosystems and immense, highly dynamic open-ocean ecosystems. In this policy brief we provide examples of open-ocean ecosystems, their importance to coastal States, and considerations of how to ensure the robust conservation and sustainable use of dynamic pelagic systems and biological diversity under a new ILBI.

A review of the impacts of fisheries on open-ocean ecosystems

June 21, 2017 | Publication Highlights, Ecology and Biodiversity, High Seas

Due to the expansion of fishing practices, fish catches have become stagnant at best while global fishing efforts continue to grow, ultimately creating major stresses on marine resources. Fisheries impacts on both coastal and deep-sea ecosystems are well understood and documented; however, the biological and ecological impacts of fishing on open-ocean systems are not well studied or documented.

POLICY BRIEF: Adjacency: How legal precedent, ecological connectivity, and Traditional Knowledge inform our understanding of proximity

April 4, 2017 | Latest News, Policy Briefs, Climate Change, High Seas

Pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), all States have customary and treaty obligations to protect and preserve the marine environment and its resources. Several countries have expressed an interest in the question of whether States could properly assert priority over the conservation of areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) adjacent to their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). The term “adjacency”, with respect to maritime coastal boundaries, refers to a State’s spatial proximity with the open ocean and deep sea in ABNJ.

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High Seas

Understanding how marine species use the high seas: The Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean (MiCO) system

Step forward in protecting the high seas, despite competing interests

POLICY BRIEF: Deep, distant and dynamic: critical considerations for incorporating the open-ocean into a new BBNJ treaty

A review of the impacts of fisheries on open-ocean ecosystems

POLICY BRIEF: Adjacency: How legal precedent, ecological connectivity, and Traditional Knowledge inform our understanding of proximity

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