Can High Seas Protected Areas Actually Work?

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Creating a marine protected area thousands
of kilometers offshore sounds impressive,

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but how do you actually enforce it?

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

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Today, we are talking about
one of the biggest questions

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surrounding the High Seas Treaty,
which we talked about yesterday.

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Can marine protected areas
actually work on the high seas?

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Now, if you don't know, if you don't know
me at all, if this is your first time or

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you haven't listened to me in a while, I
haven't talked a lot about my background.

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I do have a background as I did a
master's in marine protected areas.

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I was on the board for an
organization called Pacific Marine

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Research Analysis, PACMARA.

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And we talked a lot about marine protected
areas, looking at data, matching science

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with policy, all that kinda stuff.

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I've been involved in a lot of marine
protected areas, not necessarily marine

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protected area, like processes and
stuff like that, but I know quite

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a bit about marine protected areas.

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Definitely not an expert,
but I know quite a bit.

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And so this actually matters to
me this topic a lot, a lot more

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than a lot of the other ones because
I have a bit of a background in it.

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And knowing that marine protected
areas, even in exclusive economic zones

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where there's national jurisdiction,
how hard it is to designate,

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imagine doing it in an area where
there's no national jurisdiction.

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It's the high seas, and now with the
High Seas Treaty, we are going to be

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putting in the first, second, third,
fourth, fifth marine protected area ever.

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So this is historic, but it's
also... it has a lot of questions.

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Because, like, when you're talking
about the high seas, you can

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announce it, that's one thing, but
enforcing it is completely different.

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A marine protected area, or MPA,
is essentially an ocean zone where

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human activity is restricted to
protect ecosystems and biodiversity.

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So some MPAs limit fishing,
some restrict, like mining

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or any kind of activity.

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Sometimes they reduce shipping
impacts or protect critical habitats.

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Near coastlines is
difficult enough, obviously.

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But now imagine doing it, trying
to monitor something in the

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middle of the Pacific Ocean.

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An area so large it takes
days to reach by boat.

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You're not gonna have a coast guard
patrolling there all the time.

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And this is the challenge
facing high seas conservation.

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And historically, it has been one of the
biggest weaknesses in ocean protection.

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We just didn't know how to enforce the
high seas because there's no jurisdiction.

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A country can declare protection,
but if nobody monitors the area,

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illegal activity can still happen.

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That even happens within
national boundaries like

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the exclusive economic zone.

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If you don't have the resources to
put together, an enforcement package

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where you have coast guard going
out and actually looking at these

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places, satellites and planes and all
this kind of stuff, there's really

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no point in protecting it at all.

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It just becomes a paper park.

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And that's why scientists and advocates
increasingly focus on the difference

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between paper parks and real protection.

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A paper park looks great,
you know, politically.

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It's great to announce,
but real protection changes

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the outcomes in the water.

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So if you're protecting for biodiversity,
and you don't measure that, and you

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don't enforce, like, people coming in
on their boats and fishing all the...

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whatever they can find, then leaving or
destroying a habitat because they're

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trawling and they're just digging
up the bottom trying to catch as

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many fish as possible, then you're
not really gonna protect anything.

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If you are trying to increase
abundance and biomass of a specific

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fisheries to protect fisheries,
we can't allow fisheries to happen

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in the marine protected area.

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But how do you enforce that?

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So enforcement may be the most
underrated part of conversation.

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We don't talk about it a lot.

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What we always mention as conservationists
and scientists, we're like, "Oh, yeah,

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well, it's not enforced, so it really
doesn't really matter." Studies have

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repeatedly shown that protected areas
only succeed when rules are actually

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followed, and that doesn't happen often.

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A lot of people try and get
away with a lot of stuff.

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That means, you know, you need staffing,
you need funding, you have monitoring

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systems, you need political support for
sure, and consequences for violations.

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This becomes incredibly
difficult offshore.

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Like recently, there was a video of a man
throwing a rock at a critically endangered

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species off the coast of Hawaii

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he threw a rock at a Hawaiian monk seal.

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Now, these monk seals, like I said,
they're on the endangered species list.

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They are protected.

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If you harass it or you hurt it
in any kind of way, you can be

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charged, and this guy was charged.

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And, you know, somebody videoed it,
and you probably know the story.

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It went viral over the
last week and weekend.

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And he's being charged.

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He got arrested.

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He's being charged for it, and he
also got beaten up by the locals.

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That's a cultural thing.

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You don't mess with things that
are culturally significant.

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You don't mess with animals anyway
like that, but this guy got it a lot.

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But there was somebody there to video it.

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If not, he could've denied
that ever even happened.

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Nothing happened to the seal.

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Nothing that we saw anyway.

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It looked like the rock
missed it, thank God.

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But he could've just denied it, or he
paid a little fine, and nobody would've

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made a big deal about it at all.

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He probably never
would've gotten arrested.

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He may have still gotten beat up,
but even then, nobody was there...

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if nobody was there to record it.

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Now, imagine somebody doing that on
a ship out in the middle of the sea,

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and they threw something at an animal.

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Well, nobody would ever know because you
can't be there to video all that, right?

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So if you can't do that, if you can't give
consequences to people for violations,

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then it becomes really difficult,
especially when you're looking offshore.

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But of course, the technology
is changing the equation.

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Now, we don't have people taking
pictures out there, but satellite

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monitoring systems can now track vessel
movement across huge ocean regions.

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AIS systems, which is like the GPS
on the ships that track the ships,

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especially for shipping, but even for
fisheries that do have it or have it

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turned on, they are designated to
improve ship safety, but also help

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identify suspicious fishing behavior.

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They will be able to tell if a
boat is in a marine protected

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area, and if it's slowed down to
show that it's actually fishing.

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So organizations like Global
Fishing Watch have helped expose

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activity that previously went unseen
because they have all this data.

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That matters because visibility
creates the accountability, and

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accountability creates that pressure on
people who are not doing great things.

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But there are still major gaps.

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Not all vessels keep
tracking systems active.

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There was a study that came out saying
that 75% of the fishing fleets don't

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actually put on their tracking system,
so we don't know where they're

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fishing or how much they're fishing.

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Like, imagine that.

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You have, like, this great
technology, but nobody's using it

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and nobody's being enforced to use it.

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So some governments have actually
limited enforcement capacity, so

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they can't get out there to do it.

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And geopolitical tensions
can complicate compliance.

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So the challenge is not just
scientific, like we know the science.

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It's actually a political
and economic one as well.

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It's an important part of the system.

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We know the science.

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We know overfishing is bad.

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We know that it happens
all over the world.

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That political and economic have to
work together with the scientific.

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If it's science informed,
that's one thing.

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But if you don't have the political
will, just like we're not getting it

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in the US right now, which we typically
would get it on a lot of things.

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It looks like they're trying to just
strip away any kind of environmental

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law that's ever been activated just
so they can do some pretty nefarious

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things with fossil fuels and so forth
and cut up some pretty bad landscapes.

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And so, that is obviously a problem
if you don't have that political

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will and of course you don't
have that economic will to do so.

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So you don't want to see that
happening So what happens next?

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The High Seas Treaty does create
a possibility for more large-scale

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ocean protection, but success
depends on whether countries

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commit resources to implementation.

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There's one thing to commit to
say, "Hey, this High Seas Treaty is

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really great," and then of course,
to ratify it, that's another thing.

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But the actual thing to implement it
and to enforce it, that's a huge thing.

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Because that's what
success really depends on.

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It includes monitoring
technology, scientific research,

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enforcement cooperation,
transparency, long-term funding.

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All these things matter.

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And this is where, like,
the public attention matters

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more than people realize.

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Because governments often
respond to sustained pressure.

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And if we don't provide that pressure,
then they're just gonna ignore it.

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When ocean issues disappear from the
public conversation, the urgency fails.

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The government doesn't
have to do anything.

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But when citizens and scientists
and journalists and advocates keep

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paying attention, accountability
becomes harder to ignore.

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The next decade could define whether
high seas protection becomes

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transformative or even symbolic.

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Marine protected areas only work
when protection is measurable,

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enforceable, and real.

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The future of the high seas may
depend less on drawing lines on a

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map and more on whether the world
is willing, and I'm gonna say that

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again, is willing to enforce them.

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I'm gonna say that one more time.

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The future of the high seas
depends less on drawing lines

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on maps and more on whether the
world is willing to enforce them.

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That's what it really comes down to.

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As are we willing?

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After this high seas treaty, 20
years, two decades trying to put this

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together, finally agreeing to it,
all the countries agreed to it, then

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you get 89 at this point to ratify it
and more coming each and every day.

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And then all of a sudden, you're not
willing to enforce them, you're just

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signing this paper and saying, "Hey, yeah,
we're willing to do this, but we're not

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actually gonna do anything." No, that's
not happening, 'cause once you ratify,

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you actually have to put laws in place
to say, "Hey, we now have a high seas

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policy in this country," whether it's
Canada, United States, anywhere else.

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That's an important,
important thing to remember.

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So I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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Do you think countries are
actually going to follow this?

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Is it gonna take a while?

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Is it gonna take 10
years, 15 years, 20 years?

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Are people gonna follow it at all?

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I'm sure there's some countries
that are gonna be, like, off, but

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I would love to hear what you think.

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Hit me up on my socials.

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You can just go in the show notes.

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You can check that out.

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And of course, I'm always
willing to chat on any social,

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LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram.

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Please let me know how you
feel about these episodes.

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If you have questions or comments,
you wanna have a conversation.

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This is just the start.

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We wanna continue having
those conversations, whether

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you agree with me or not.

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I'm not mad at anybody.

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Just come with me.

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Don't be rude.

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Just be polite.

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We'll have conversations.

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It'll be a lot of fun, 'cause
this is what we're gonna do.

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We talk about the ocean.

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Of course, don't forget, if you want
to hear more about the ocean and you

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wanna hear more about how to protect
it, especially about the high seas,

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this week is the week to follow this
podcast by hitting that follow button

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right now on your favorite podcast app.

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And thank you so much for joining
me on today's episode of the How

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to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.

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Have a great day.

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We'll talk to you next
time, and happy conservation.