The RISE UP Navigator- this month's essential Ocean update

Welcome to the first edition of the RISE UP Navigator.

First, we, the editorial team of the RISE UP Navigator, would like to express our deep shock at Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Our hearts and thoughts are with those affected in the Ukraine and surrounding region and we stand in solidarity with everyone around the world who is striving for a peaceful resolution. Our movement is about people and planet.

This edition was already in production when the war began and highlights the need to secure an ambitious, legally binding High Seas Treaty at critical UN negotiations next week, as well as sharing some great news for Iceland’s whales, less promising news about EU shipping, campaign action in South Africa, and high-level Blue Diplomacy in France – among other Ocean stories. There are also multiple ways that you can get engaged in calls for stronger action to protect our blue planet.

RISE UP is excited to have adopted this much-loved source of essential Ocean news and we look forward to navigating our way through key marine moments with you throughout the year.

Looking out to Sea

High Seas Treaty talks go forth
Whale it's about time! Iceland to Stop Whaling
Our Ocean Palau – Pacific preparations in full swing

Building the wave

30x30 Now! Campaign in South Africa
Law of the Wild (LAW) launched
EU shipping policy fails to fuel climate progress

Ocean Reflections

One Ocean Summit – Rising Up for the High Seas

Stories

Scientific and other reports

Key dates

Looking out to Sea

©Berenice Melis / Unsplash

High Seas Treaty talks go forth
It’s a high stakes moment for the High Seas. From 7-18 March the long-delayed fourth – and supposedly final – Intergovernmental Conference (IGC4) on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) will be held at the UN in New York. It’s more than two years since the last High Seas Treaty talks were held and it’s vital that delegates at IGC4 return to the negotiations ready to agree to a transformative treaty that respects and bolsters our Ocean’s resources, protects biodiversity, and shares their benefits equitably among the global community. Our governments must be held to account – which is why a large group of NGOs have written to the UN Secretary General expressing their deep concern over the exclusion of civil society from IGC4. After all, everyone on Earth is a stakeholder in these negotiations, and everyone is invited to add their name to a new petition launched by RISE UP and Only One to urge world leaders to raise their ambitions and secure a robust, legally binding High Seas Treaty.

Today, just 1.2% of the High Seas is protected, leaving almost half the surface of our planet – and its biggest reservoir of biodiversity – dangerously exposed to exploitation. To change this, among the key elements that the new High Seas Treaty must include are mechanisms for establishing marine protected areas (MPSs) in international waters so that we can protect the hidden wonders of the High Seas. Fortunately, calls for a strong High Seas Treaty are getting louder by the day. On 24 January, High Seas Youth Ambassadors released a Youth Declaration outlining their priorities for an ambitious BBNJ Treaty and demanding that governments conclude the treaty negotiations at IGC4. On 7 February, ahead of the One Ocean Summit in Brest, a collective of 19 NGOs published a statement in Le Monde newspaper calling on the heads of state attending the Summit to commit to concrete advances in ocean protection, including the adoption of a robust High Seas Treaty. And this follows a letter from a group of 20 leading scientists imploring world leaders to seize the opportunity of an ambitious treaty to protect the High Seas for generations to come, build ocean resilience to climate change, and create a more equitable ocean for all humankind.

Twenty years of BBNJ discussions is enough – time’s up! Now is the moment to take action and add your voice to these calls – sign the petition, build momentum by sharing it on Facebook and Twitter, and follow the High Seas Alliance Treaty Tracker for all the latest news. All citizens and civil society organizations can #RiseUp4TheOcean and help raise global ambitions to secure a robust High Seas Treaty to protect our Ocean.

©David Nieto / Unsplash

Whale it's about time! Iceland to Stop Whaling
What better 50th birthday present for the Save the Whale campaign than for one of the last countries in the world still hunting these magnificent animals to finally hang up its harpoon for good. As we approach half a century since the campaign got started at the 1972 UN Environment Conference in Stockholm, Iceland has announced that it plans to end whaling from 2024 due to dwindling demand for whale meat. According to Fisheries Minister Svandis Svavarsdóttir, “there is little proof that there is any economic advantage to this activity.” Which is what anti-whaling campaigners have been arguing for decades!

Whales are worth far more alive than dead – especially in Iceland. Before the pandemic, the country may have had the fastest growing whale watching industry in the world, with an incredible 20% average annual growth rate. In Iceland’s last full pre-pandemic season in 2018, the country killed 146 fin whales (classed as vulnerable on IUCN’s Red List) and 6 minke whales, and the current quotas for 2019-2023 allow the hunting of 209 fin whales and 217 minke whales. So, it’s fantastic news for whales and for the world that – 75 years after the creation of the International Whaling Commission – this hunting season will be Iceland’s last. Just what we needed for a happy World Whale Day on 20 February.

©Jayne Jenkins / Coral Reef Image Bank

Our Ocean Palau – Pacific preparations in full swing
The Pacific Island Republic of Palau is getting ready to roll out the blue carpet for participants coming to the 7th Our Ocean Conference from 13-14 April. It’s the first time the OOC is being held in a small island developing state, and Palau is planning to share its unique perspective on the ocean-climate crisis with experts from around the world. Though a tiny island nation, Palau is a world leader in Ocean conservation, having fully protected 80% of its waters in a vast marine sanctuary the size of France, and a powerful voice for climate action.

At COP26 last year, the President of Palau caught global attention with a heartfelt plea to the world not to let climate change consign his people to the history books. In April, Palau will shine the spotlight on Six Areas of Action to increase the Ocean’s resilience to climate change and safeguard its health for generations to come. Join the global conversation using #OurOceanPalau #MyOcean #OurOcean.

Building the wave

30x30 Now! Campaign in South Africa
South Africa is home to 10% of the world’s marine species and is a global hotspot for sharks and rays – but so far it is not one of the more than 80 countries to have officially supported the global goal to protect at least 30% of the Ocean and land by 2030 (30x30). The new 30x30Now! campaign wants to change that and is asking people to add their name to an open letter to South African Minister Barbara Creecy, to show the leaders of South Africa how important it is to back the 30x30 goal. This is especially vital ahead of a meeting in Geneva from 13-29 March of the working group tasked with developing the Convention for Biological Diversity’s Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework – which is expected to include the 30x30 goal. RISE UP is an active supporter of the call for 30x30 protection, a priority action under the ‘P’ for Protect in the Blue Call to Action.
Law of the Wild (LAW) launched
One of the latest organizations to join the RISE UP Network is Law of the Wild, a newly launched, public interest, non-profit environmental firm based in Washington DC. LAW’s mission is to conserve wildlife, habitats, and ecosystems, by ensuring that international and national legal frameworks and policies are robust, well-implemented and enforced. Working on terrestrial and marine issues both in the US and internationally, the LAW team is dedicated to the protection of wildlife and wild spaces everywhere.
EU shipping policy fails to fuel climate progress
A quarter of EU shipping will run on liquid natural gas (LNG) by 2030, locking-in fossil fuels for decades, says a new study by the organization Transport & Environment. The study finds that misguided EU sustainability targets encourage an uptake of LNG that will bring limited benefit to the climate. As the sustainable shipping officer at T&E, reports, “the old narrative of gas as transitional fuel just doesn’t hold. We cannot afford to shift from one fossil fuel to another. It will not get us to zero emissions by 2050.” This policy also does not chime with the ‘S’ in the RISE UP Blue Call to Action, which calls for greater Speed in the transition to a circular and sustainable economy – including genuinely green shipping.

Ocean reflections

©Jeff Yonover

One Ocean Summit – Rising Up for the High Seas
The One Ocean Summit hosted by the French Government in Brest from 9-11 February was an opportunity to raise the Ocean higher on the global political agenda, and for President Macron to encourage greater commitments from other world leaders ahead of important events and decisions related to the Ocean in 2022. The RISE UP network was active mobilizing French civil society before the Summit, including by initiating an open letter to President Macron signed by 28 French NGOs calling on him to demonstrate leadership to increase the level of ambition needed to adopt a strong UN High Seas Treaty in 2022. Then, as delegates arrived on 9 February, RISE UP organized a rally of local citizens and activists waving placards, banners and handmade flags asking for “A strong High Seas Treaty Now”. Seas At Risk and partners also seized the political opportunity created by the Summit to draw attention to the fact that Spain and France allow thousands of legally protected dolphins to die as bycatch in the Bay of Biscay every year, and hand over a petition signed by over half a million citizens demanding action to save thousands of dolphins from fishing nets in France and Spain.

At the Summit itself, the High Seas Treaty was high on the agenda and it was wonderful to see High Seas protection get the attention it so urgently needs. This culminated with launch of a High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction. The new Coalition includes the 27 EU Member States and 16 third countries and its official aim is: “to foster the conclusion this year of an effective, global agreement on the sustainable use of the high seas and the protection of their biodiversity.” As European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, told the Summit: “We are so close, but we need to push [to get the Treaty signed in 2022]”. In another piece of good news, the Brest Commitments for the Oceans also states that “30 additional countries have joined the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People launched at the One Planet Summit in January 2021. Now, 84 countries aim to protect 30% of the world’s land and sea by 2030.”

These words, and the new Coalition for a strong High Seas Treaty, are welcome, but words are not enough. President Macron and other leaders must now prove their commitment with concrete action and ensure their representatives demonstrate far greater ambition at the crucial High Seas Treaty negotiations at the UN in March. As Manon Dene of the RISE UP Network in France concluded: “We hope this wave of political will to finalize negotiations of a landmark High Seas Treaty this year inspires real change for the future, rather than defends business as usual.”