Researchers call for the science needed to get the ocean we want

Two years into the decade of the ocean, what has the world accomplished to collectively conserve and sustainably use marine diversity in areas beyond national borders? The United Nations Member States agreed on parameters of what they’ve dubbed a “High Seas Treaty” to detail the cooperative, coordinated approaches member states will take to improve ocean management. To translate the agreement to reality, the co-editors-in-chief of Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research (OLAR), a Science Partner Journal, are calling for more scientific discussion to best inform the work to be done.    

They published their editorial, titled “The Science We Need for the Ocean We Want” in reference to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science For Sustainable Development report (2021-2030), on March 22.

“If enacted by a majority of the world’s countries, as seems likely, this treat would create massive marine protected areas covering 30% of the ocean area by 2030,” said co-corresponding author Robert W. Howarth, The David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology at Cornell University in the United States. Howarth is also a faculty fellow with the Cornell Atkinson Center. “We commend the negotiators for their effort, and we hope for great success from this treat. The devil is in the details, though.”

The 30% of protected ocean areas would primarily cover international waters, which currently has little protection or oversight, according to Howarth. He also noted that even currently protected areas have limited regulations.

“Currently, marine protected areas occur only in national territorial waters, where they cover less than one-fifth of these waters, which is a very small portion of the total oceans,” Howarth said. “And within these areas, levels of protection are often in fact quite low: more than 90% of these ‘protected areas’ offer little — if any — constraints against extractive or other destructive uses, such as mining and oil and gas production. The world needs to do better.”

Howarth and co-corresponding author Dake Chen detail specific questions, probing how the protective steps laid out in the treaty will be implemented and enforced. They also question how the treaty might address novel issues, such as new approaches to ocean fertilization processes and proposed methods for sequestrating carbon in the ocean. While they do not propose answers, they do outline how to get the answers: science.

“Science must play a major role in developing the details of future ocean management and protection,” said Chen, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is also affiliated with the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory. “We established the journal of Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research in major part to provide the best quality science that can help in this discussion of how best to manage the world’s oceans into the future.”

The journal, in its second year, regularly publishes peer-reviewed papers that directly address how the world is changing and how that affects the oceans and their management, according to Chen.

“Understanding land-ocean interaction and ocean-atmosphere interactions is central to the future of the management of oceans,” Chen said, noting that all are welcome to read the papers published in OLAR and that new submissions are “enthusiastically” invited. “Please help us use the journal as a pathway to better inform the world on how best to manage our oceans and our planet… Give OLAR and the world your best thoughts on how science can contribute to a better future.”

Submission guidelines, including manuscript categories and submission requirements, are available on the OLAR website.