Who Actually Owns the Ocean?

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Almost half of the planet belongs
to no country at all, and for

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decades, much of it had been treated
like a resource free-for-all.

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This is the How to Protect the Ocean
podcast, your weekly ocean news update.

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If you care about staying informed on
the ocean every single weekday, Monday

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to Friday, hit that follow button on
your favorite podcast app now, so

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you don't miss tomorrow's story.

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Today, we're answering a
deceptively simple question.

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Who actually owns the ocean?

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Look, the ocean covers 71% of the planet.

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Every country manages about 200
nautical miles off of their coastline,

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so what happens to the rest of it?

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Because when we hear terms like high seas
or international waters, most people

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picture open ocean far from shore and
assume someone has to be in charge.

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But the reality is much more complicated.

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And that complexity is one of the
biggest reasons ocean conservation

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has struggled for decades.

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So the definition of the high
seas is basically open areas

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outside of any country's borders.

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So every coastal nation controls waters
close to shore through what's called

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the exclusive economic zone, or EEZ.

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It generally stretches out for
about two hundred nautical miles

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from the country's coastline.

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Inside those waters, countries control
fishing rights, oil exploration, shipping

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regulations, and conservation measures.

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But once you move beyond those
boundaries, you enter the high seas.

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And to be honest, they're massive.

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And I've covered a number of episodes
on the high seas over the years, but I

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want to reset today and just really
talk about, you know, the high seas

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and who owns it, especially today.

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And this week, we're gonna be
talking all about the high seas.

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We have a really great episode at the end
of the week where we do an interview with

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the director of the High Seas Alliance.

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We talk all about what's coming up
this year, why is this is such a

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big year in 2026 for the high seas.

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So we're talking nearly half of the
surface of the Earth for the high seas.

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Like, just the high seas.

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Like, taking out the exclusive
economic zones, just the high seas.

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That means the largest ecosystem
on the planet exists mostly outside

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any direct national control.

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That's a pretty big amount.

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It's a lot of responsibility for nobody.

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That's a hard thing to
wrap around your head.

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Imagine if half the Amazon
rainforest belonged to nobody.

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Imagine if there were almost no
enforceable protections around that.

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Imagine if countries, corporations,
and industries could operate

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there with limited oversight.

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That's essentially what the
world has allowed to happen

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in large parts of the ocean.

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Historically, the high seas were
built around the concept of freedom.

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Freedom to navigate, freedom to
fish, freedom to conduct commerce.

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And for centuries, that made
sense because people believed the

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ocean was too large to damage.

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It's so big.

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Like, it's this massive empty space.

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We can't do any damage to it.

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But industrial technology
changed everything.

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The Industrial Revolution just
changed absolutely everything.

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Now, massive fishing fleets can operate
thousands of kilometers from shore.

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Deep sea mining companies want
access to untouched ecosystems.

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And cargo shipping crosses
nearly every ocean basin.

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And climate change is stressing marine
life everywhere at the same time.

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The ocean may feel endless, but
it's no longer beyond human impact.

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In fact, every part of the ocean
has been impacted by humans.

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And it's really shown when you go to
the deepest part of the ocean, the

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Mariana Trench, and you actually see
plastic pollution in the Mariana Trench.

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And here's why this matters to
everyday people like yourself.

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The high seas help regulate the climate.

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I'm gonna say that one more time.

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The high seas help regulate the climate.

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And this is huge because when we talk
about climate change, we rarely talk about

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the ocean, unless you're on this podcast
and you're talking to a marine biologist.

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Climate change has to do with ocean,
and ocean has to do with climate change.

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They are interchangeable.

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But these high seas, they support
migratory species like tuna,

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sharks, whales, and sea turtles.

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They connect ecosystems
across entire ocean basins.

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And they help support global food systems.

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So what happens in the high seas
does not stay in the high seas.

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It's not like Vegas.

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It's not like Vegas one bit.

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If tuna populations collapse offshore,
coastal fisheries suffer too.

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If biodiversity disappears in
deep ocean ecosystems, we may lose

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species before we even discover them.

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And one of the biggest
problems is visibility.

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Most people never see
what happens far offshore.

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We'll see the plastic on beaches.

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We may see the coral bleaching.

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But industrial activity in the open
ocean often happens out of sight.

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That makes accountability harder.

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And this is what, to be honest, not
that I'm a huge fan of what they've

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done in the past, but Sea Shepherd has
done for decades, is they've actually

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gone out into the high seas, even
though nobody can really stop them

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from doing anything, and they've
gotten in the way of Japanese whalers.

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They've chased down illegal fishing
boats from all over the world.

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They've been able to do this
because it works on the high seas.

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There's nobody to stop the Sea Shepherd
from doing anything, and there's

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nobody to stop the illegal fishers and
the illegal whalers from doing the

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damage that they wanna do to the ocean.

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So it makes accountability harder, even
if you're trying to do conservation or

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if you're not trying to do conservation,
or you're trying to protect conservation.

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And enforcement becomes incredibly
difficult when vessels are operating

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days or weeks away from land.

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This is part of the reason ocean
advocates pushed so hard for the High

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Seas Treaty, which we're gonna be talking
about tomorrow and the rest of the

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week, to be honest, and to be honest,

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for a long, long time.

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Because the ocean can't function
effectively as disconnected pieces.

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Marine life, it does not
recognize political borders.

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They don't recognize the
exclusive economic zone.

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Ocean currents do not stop at exclusive
economic lines, and that's where

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like fisheries will be huge part.

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I've talked about this
before on the podcast.

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There is a squid fishery that starts
within the exclusive economic zone of

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Argentina along the coast, but then
eventually that fishery was gonna go

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over that border where there are a long
line of distant water fleets, like

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Chinese fleets and other countries'
fleets, who are waiting for those squids

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a certain time of year 'cause they know
they go over the exclusive economic

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zone, and they'll fish them, and they'll
try and grab as many possible 'cause

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there's nobody to hold them accountable.

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The ocean is connected, but
governance has remained fragmented.

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And that's an important piece, right?

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It's an important piece to talk about
how these governance system gets

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fragmented because you can't hold
people accountable in the high seas.

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It's pretty much the Wild Wild West
if you think about it in that way.

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But we can provide the information, and
now with the High Seas Treaty, which we're

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gonna talk about tomorrow, we can provide
that information, and we can give you the

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answers so that you can make responsible
decisions on what is coming from the high

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seas, whether it's seafood, whatever goes
to the high seas like plastic pollution.

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You can make those decisions.

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And that's what we try to do here on
the podcast, and if you're getting value

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from that on this podcast and you're
getting that information so you can make

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a better decision, I'd love for you
to hit that follow button right now on

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your favorite podcast app so that you
don't miss any of the other episodes

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that we're gonna be doing, not only
this week, but later on in the future.

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That's what we really wanna do.

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Now, what happens next?

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So now the big question
becomes, can the world actually

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govern the high seas effectively.

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We know that nobody really
owns it, but can we do that?

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And that's where the High
Seas Treaty enters the story.

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The treaty claims to create a
framework for protecting biodiversity

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beyond national jurisdiction.

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In simpler terms, it creates
a pathway for marine protected

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areas in international waters.

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That's a huge shift and a huge
challenge to come forward because

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until recently, creating meaningful
protections in those areas was

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incredibly difficult politically because
just nobody was there to manage it.

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You couldn't even enforce it
because there's no jurisdiction.

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So anybody who went in there to fish,
if, say, fishing was gonna be blocked for

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that marine protected area, anybody that
went in there, well, it doesn't matter.

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They can get away with whatever they
want because nobody has jurisdiction.

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But this is where it
gets really complicated.

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A treaty alone does not
automatically protect the ocean.

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Countries still need to ratify it, and
they need to agree on enforcement.

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They need funding, they need monitoring
systems, and they need political will.

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This is the part that Rebecca Hubbard
emphasized repeatedly in conversations

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around the treaty, which we're
gonna be talking about on Friday.

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From now until Thursday, this is
the setup for our Friday interview.

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And the agreement for the treaty
creates this type of opportunity, but

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implementation determines success,
and that's true for almost every

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conservation effort that we've seen.

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Protection only works when it becomes
real in the water, not just on paper.

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We've talked about that for a long
time about marine protected areas.

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So the high seas are not just some like
distant place disconnected from our lives.

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We know that we affect change
that happens, whether good or bad,

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among the ocean basins, across the
ocean basins, everywhere in the

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ocean, because we have that effect.

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We're humans.

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We have this ability to do that.

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But the high seas, they
help stabilize the planet.

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They support marine life, and they
influence the future of the ocean itself.

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And for the first time in history,
the world is trying to build a

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system to protect them collectively.

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And that matters because the ocean
story is really a shared responsibility.

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That's what it is.

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It's a shared responsibility story.

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And this story is what we're gonna be
talking about for the rest of this week.

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The High Seas Treaty, which we'll
talk about, focus on tomorrow, was

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just ratified finally by 60 countries.

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Now I think we're up to 89
countries the last time I checked.

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That will kinda tell who is involved.

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So we're at about just over half of
the countries in the world, and we

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can see that things are starting to
collectively get really great, and we're

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gonna start to see some really great
things that are happening in the future.

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We just need more countries
to ratify, including my own

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Canada has not ratified yet.

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We hope that they'll
ratify within the year.

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Not sure what's really happening there.

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They haven't really spoken about it.

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There's some other things that are
distracting them, I think, that are

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happening in the world, but that is
no excuse because we just do not have

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the time to wait to protect the ocean.

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That has to happen as soon as
possible, like yesterday, and the

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day before, and the day before that.

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So that's it for today's episode.

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I just wanna say, if you are interested
in learning more and you haven't followed

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the podcast yet, follow that podcast.

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The more people that follow the
podcast, the higher we get in the

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charts, and then that means the
more people that get access to it.

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They get to see it.

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They get to visualize it.

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There are a lot of podcasts in
these podcast stores, whether it's

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Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music,
wherever you get your podcasts.

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There's a lot of competition out
there, and there's some great podcasts

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that have some amazing information.

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However, for us to kinda get in
front of other people's faces, we

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like to get up into those charts.

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And the more you follow,
the higher we get.

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And plus you don't miss
any other episodes.

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So just from a selfish reason,
for yourself, like let's do it.

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If you wanna learn more about the ocean,
this is the podcast to do it with.

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All right.

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That's it for today's episode.

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I wanna thank you so much for
joining me on today's episode of the

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How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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If you wanna get ahold of me,
just check the show notes.

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Until next time, have a great day.

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We'll talk to you tomorrow,
and happy conservation.