Although there is no official word, it is highly likely the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15), due to be held in Kunming this October, will be pushed back to next year, as the coronavirus epidemic has forced a number of preparatory meetings to be cancelled or delayed, stalling the already slow CBD negotiations process.
The epidemic makes the future of targets for global biodiversity including in the ocean even more uncertain. With economies suffering, how much money will there be for marine biodiversity? But some see opportunity. Li Shuo, senior global policy advisor with Greenpeace East Asia, says recent epidemics have almost all originated in animals, and the coronavirus exposes the possible health risks that arise when the relationship between humanity and nature falls out of balance.
Calls for a Thirty by Thirty target to make 30% of the global ocean marine protected areas (MPAs) by 2030 have been increasing. The target is already in the zero draft for CBD COP15, and it is the clearest and most widely supported of the proposals to the conference.
But the slow pace of progress over the last decade, often inadequate marine protection where it does exist, and the current precarious state of negotiations over mechanisms to protect the high seas all point to the huge challenge of achieving the goal. Even if the political will to add it to the Kunming targets is there, actually fulfilling that commitment within the next ten years looks to be an impossible task.
As early as 2000, scientists were calling for 30% of the ocean to be protected in order to preserve biodiversity. In 2003, the World Park Congress proposed strict protections for at least 20-30% of the ocean by 2012. Unfortunately, a lack of political will meant that parties to the CBD scaled back ambitions in 2010, calling for protection of only 10% of coastal and marine areas. That became Aichi Target 11, named for the Japanese prefecture where the 2010 talks took place.
Ten years later, when reviewing the performance of the 196 parties to the CBD, there is no denying that even the 10% target has been missed. Although the CBD doesn’t make official data on protected ocean areas available, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature calculated from national data that only 7.43% of the ocean worldwide was protected as of 12 April 2020.
The Aichi target was more concerned with the quantity of MPAs than the quality. It called for such areas to be conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems. But much research has shown that MPAs are only effective when extractive practices such as fishing and mining are banned.
When you look at the quality of protections, that 7.43% achievement seems even less impressive. First, this is just a simple total of nationally reported figures, and many of the MPAs are paper parks, existing only in government documents. Some are merely proposals, years away from implementation. Second, the vast majority of these MPAs still allow the use of various types of resources. After examining the data, the Marine Conservation Institute found that only 2.5% of the ocean could be classed as highly protected, with only light extractive activities allowed.
Kristina Gjerde, senior high seas advisor to the IUCN, told China Dialogue: So to me the definition of MPA needs to talk about everything [being] managed for conservation, and MPAs today don’t. They are just more like marine planning exercises. She explained that the IUCN places MPAs in one of six categories, according to the level of protection, with Category V and VI allowing the sustainable use of natural resources. It means more sustainable use for local communities. It doesn’t mean commercial fishing. And so if you start to scrutinise how many MPAs are open to commercial fishing, and said no, they should not be really qualified MPAs’, your numbers will go way down.
Calls to implement the Thirty by Thirty target have gathered force among scientists, international organisations, the media and the public, and can no longer be ignored. But nor can two problems: First, given the lessons learned from the Aichi process, can we fulfil this goal? Second, how? This brings us to high seas governance.
The CBD aims to protect global biodiversity. But its signatories sovereign states can only create MPAs within their jurisdiction, not for the high seas. Aichi Target 11 did not specify if that 10% was to be in marine areas within national jurisdiction, or to cover the high seas. Currently, the vast majority of MPAs fall within national jurisdictions.
But only 39% of the ocean falls within national jurisdiction, with the remaining 61% being international waters. Thus, achieving the 30% protection target would require protecting almost 80% of domestic waters. This is clearly unrealistic.
In other words, the tools currently at the CBD’s disposal do not allow it to reach the Thirty by Thirty target. Either it comes up with new mechanisms, or the 196 signatories achieve that target via other international platforms or tools.
There is no widely used method for managing MPAs on the high seas. In 2004, talks started on marine biodiversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction (BBNJ), under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. After 16 years of talks and three formal intergovernmental negotiations in the last two years, there is hope for a binding treaty on the high seas. The MPA articles of that treaty would be an important tool for the CBD in achieving its targets.
China Dialogue Trust