For the last 20 years, Lisa Speer has been working doggedly to protect biodiversity and environmental interests in international waters, commonly known as the high seas, which cover half our planet.
In 2023, she was a lead advocate during negotiations for the U.N. High Seas Treaty, a historic global agreement forged by more than 100 countries that, among other things, will enable the establishment of marine protected areas in the international waters that lie more than 200 miles offshore. These areas are where wildlife in the depths can thrive—protected from lawlessness and the impacts of overfishing, pollution, and shipping, plus newer threats like deep-sea mining.
The goal? To better protect and manage this common resource that no country “owns”—and create a framework to do so. Scientific evidence indicates that protecting 30% of the world’s oceans is a minimum benchmark to achieving long-term ocean health. Currently, 8% of the ocean is designated as marine protected area, and, according to one recent assessment, less than 3% is “effectively protected.” A treaty to strengthen regulation of the high seas, which make up almost two-thirds of the ocean, is a critical step forward.
What was once achievable has become more challenging, in a time when the U.S. is no longer a leader in progressive climate and environmental action and has instead implemented targeted rollbacks of long-established green protections and decades-old policy.
And yet, against all odds, the High Seas Treaty is still on the verge of securing the 60 ratifications necessary for the treaty to go into effect, with the French government leading the final push. The treaty is expected to reach this benchmark during the opening week of this year’s U.N. General Assembly, when heads of state and ministers gather in New York and can personally deposit their instruments of ratification the week of Sept. 22-26.
Read more: The Ocean Is Our Best Chance to Survive Climate Change
It’s hard to overstate the significance of a new international treaty at this current political moment. There has never been a climate diplomacy effort like this for the ocean—it is obviously a big win for the ocean, but also for multilateralism.
Sixty ratifications will trigger a 120-day countdown for the agreement to become binding international law, which will eventually allow countries to propose and negotiate the first high seas protected areas, and to improve the patchwork of management outside of those areas. “The French have already agreed to bring the Champagne to New York,” Speer told me.
Speer, who has been NRDC’s longtime director of international oceans, thrills in sharing fun trivia about the most remote regions of our planet, including facts like the following: The Bering Strait turns into an “underwater Serengeti” every spring and fall with hidden-yet-massive migrations. A narwhal’s horn is actually a long tooth with nerves that tells it what’s going on in the Arctic environment. Polar cod are the nutrient-filled “energy bars” of the ocean.
This granular knowledge and deep curiosity is also what drives Speer’s long-standing dedication to protecting the vast, vulnerable open ocean and deep-sea environments that lie outside of national borders and hold some of the largest reservoirs of biodiversity on earth.
The High Seas Alliance—a global partnership of scientists and advocates from dozens of universities and organizations—has identified eight priority sites with some of the most critically threatened and biologically important ecosystems. These are some of the candidates for the first generation of high seas marine protected areas, which are expected in the next few years; you might think of them as the Hidden Natural Wonders of the Undersea World.
One of these is the Lost City, a vast hydrothermal field at the bottom of the Atlantic—a kind of unique prehistoric hotbed of massive, dramatic chimney spires venting chemical reactions that scientists have been studying for clues to how life on Earth (and other planets) began. This extreme, harsh environment excites biologists, geologists, and other researchers because it is at the same time rich in biodiversity, supporting everything from corals to shellfish and jellyfish, sharks, and eels. Sixty percent of the species present in Lost City are found only here. And it is vulnerable to deep-sea mining exploration that’s already happening nearby.
Read more: The Ocean Still Holds Mysteries. That’s Why We Must Save It
The effort to establish high seas protections will outlast any single administration, and global public support will be critical to these efforts. Speer is the first to acknowledge that many of the specifics of managing fishing, shipping, and other industrial activities around these areas still need to be hammered out; this agreement is meant to be the foundation on which to do so.
Once it becomes international law, the treaty has the power to protect much of the ocean: to establish the high seas marine parks, share profits from commercial products derived from international waters, and mandate programs to level out the playing field for marine research and technology in developing countries. It also lays out stronger management practices governing human activities outside protected areas. It’s an important milestone—and, in this day and age, a moral imperative—but it’s not where the work ends. In many ways it’s where it begins.
“The reward for hard work is more hard work,” Speer said, “and there is plenty of that ahead.”
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