{"id":40077164,"date":"2020-05-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/china-dialogue-ocean-staging.darkbluehq.com\/uncategorized\/13850-protecting-30-of-ocean-easier-said-than-done-thirty-by-thirty\/"},"modified":"2022-02-10T23:01:45","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T17:31:45","slug":"13850-protecting-30-of-ocean-easier-said-than-done-thirty-by-thirty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/ocean\/13850-protecting-30-of-ocean-easier-said-than-done-thirty-by-thirty\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting 30% of the ocean is easier said than done"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although there is no official word, it is highly likely the 15th<\/sup> Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity<\/a> (CBD COP15), due to be held in Kunming this October, will be pushed back to next year, as the coronavirus epidemic has forced a number of preparatory meetings to be cancelled or delayed, stalling the already slow CBD negotiations process.<\/p>\n

The epidemic makes the future of targets for global biodiversity \u2013 including in the ocean \u2013 even more uncertain. With economies suffering, how much money will there be for marine biodiversity? But some see opportunity. Li Shuo, senior global policy advisor with Greenpeace East Asia, says recent epidemics have almost all originated in animals, and the coronavirus exposes the possible health risks that arise when the relationship between humanity and nature falls out of balance.<\/p>\n

Calls for a \u201cThirty by Thirty\u201d target \u2013 to make 30% of the global ocean marine protected areas (MPAs) by 2030 \u2013 have been increasing. The target is already in the zero draft<\/a> for CBD COP15, and it is the clearest and most widely supported of the proposals to the conference.<\/p>\n

Marine Protected Areas cover 7.43% of the ocean<\/h3>\n
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(Image: UNEP-WCMC \/ IUCN<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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But the slow pace of progress over the last decade, often inadequate marine protection where it does exist, and the current precarious state of negotiations over mechanisms to protect the high seas all point to the huge challenge of achieving the goal. Even if the political will to add it to the Kunming targets is there, actually fulfilling that commitment within the next ten years looks to be an impossible task.<\/p>\n

Aichi failures<\/h2>\n

As early as 2000, scientists were calling for 30% of the ocean to be protected in order to preserve biodiversity. In 2003, the World Park Congress proposed strict protections for at least 20-30% of the ocean by 2012. Unfortunately, a lack of political will meant that parties to the CBD scaled back ambitions in 2010, calling for protection of only 10% of coastal and marine areas. That became Aichi Target 11, named for the Japanese prefecture where the 2010 talks took place.<\/p>\n

Ten years later, when reviewing the performance of the 196 parties to the CBD, there is no denying that even the 10% target has been missed. Although the CBD doesn\u2019t make official data on protected ocean areas available, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature calculated<\/a> from national data that only 7.43% of the ocean worldwide was protected as of 12 April 2020.<\/p>\n