An agreement on the protection of the open seas has been reached after more than 15 years of negotiations.
– The ship has reached the shore, summed up the chairman of the negotiations Rena Lee Finnish time at the UN headquarters in New York early on Sunday accompanied by resounding applause.
According to the agreement, 30 percent of the open sea areas will be converted into protected areas by 2030. The open sea refers to the area that begins after the end of the economic zones of different countries.
Open seas cover almost half of the Earth’s surface.
The agreement will be officially approved later after lawyers have checked its wording and it has been translated into all six official languages of the UN. However, Lee assured that the contract will not be opened or changed in any other way.
The struggle for the agreement was tight, as the last round of negotiations lasted 38 hours.
Open sea areas are threatened by, among other things, overfishing, pollution and climate change.