UN resuming talks on high-seas treaty amid growing concerns

After four inconclusive sessions, UN member states on Monday resume talks aimed at finally completing a treaty to protect the world's high seas, a vital yet fragile resource that covers nearly half the planet.

A host of NGOs and affected countries say the pact is urgently needed to improve environmental stewardship over the vast, yet largely unregulated, area as it faces growing challenges.

But the Covid-19 pandemic slowed negotiations for two years, and a session in March that was supposed to have been conclusive made progress but ran out of time.

The new round of talks opening Monday is set to run through August 26 at United Nations headquarters in New York.

Whether it will really be the last round remains uncertain, according to those close to the talks.

Negotiators are "cautiously optimistic," said a source with the High Ambition Coalition, which groups some 50 countries led by the European Union.

The source told AFP that participants need to find a compromise between two "grand ideas": protecting the environment and regulating human activities on the one hand, while also guarding freedoms on the high seas.

The high seas begin at the border of nations' exclusive economic zones (EEZs), which by international law reach no more than 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from each country's coast, and are under no state's jurisdiction.

Even if the high seas represent more than 60 percent of the oceans -- and nearly half the planet -- they have long been largely ignored in favor of coastal zones, with protections extended only to a few vulnerable species. Only one percent of the high seas enjoys legal protection.

Yet, scientists have proved the importance of protecting oceanic ecosystems in their entirety. They produce half the oxygen humans breathe and help limit global warming by absorbing much of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity.

They are seriously at risk, however, from the continuing rise in levels of carbon dioxide (which intensifies warming and makes ocean waters more acid), pollution and overfishing.