Witness an Underwater Wild West
The U.N. High Seas Treaty could protect uncharted habitats and species in international waters. See early photos.
- By Paula Moura
- Conservation
- Jun 27, 2024
A brittle star and zoanthid corals colonize the skeleton of another coral, photographed in March in international waters off Chile. Scroll down for a slideshow from the recent Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition. (Photo by ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute)
IF RATIFIED, a new proposal would fill a monumental conservation gap, protecting wildlife as fantastical as the treaty’s swashbuckling name implies.
The United Nations High Seas Treaty drew representatives from dozens of countries last September, signing on their support for the creation of marine conservation areas in international waters—that is, ocean waters beyond individual countries’ jurisdictions. These remote seas make up roughly two-thirds of global oceans and cover nearly half the planet’s surface.
“It could be game-changing for the future of biodiversity,” says Douglas McCauley, a professor of marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who sees the treaty creating “international biodiversity parks, sort of like national parks.”
These deep-water canyons, seamounts and hydrothermal vents represent some of the least studied habitats in the world, serving as nursing and feeding grounds for a vast number of marine species. Less than 2 percent of the total area is currently protected, even as predatory activities are increasing. What’s more, the high seas are experiencing biodiversity loss, impacting the oceans’ ability to mitigate the effects of climate change through carbon sequestration and heat absorption.
The treaty’s origins date back to the 2000s, when conservationists sounded the alarm on deep sea trawling—a type of fishing for orange roughy that involves dragging huge nets across the ocean floor, often leaving a path of destruction in their wake.
Around the same time, scientists, corporations and governments began to think about regulating genetic material in the high seas, considering who should benefit from resources in what is essentially an underwater Wild West. “It wasn’t until [these groups] joined forces that you had sufficient support to actually go forward with a new agreement,” says Kristina Gjerde, senior high seas advisor for the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
As the treaty moves through political channels, scientists are debating how to determine which marine areas to protect. “One [way] is to get your really super special places, like the World Heritage [Sites],” Gjerde says, referring to U.N.-protected locations such as Virunga National Park in Congo and the New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands. “Others are looking to create networks, or a necklace, of protected areas,” she says, connecting key migration routes and habitat.
McCauley is among the scientists using data analysis to identify potential conservation areas. Possibilities include Salas y Gómez and Nazca Ridges, two submarine mountain ranges west of Peru and Chile with such high biodiversity that a recent Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition found more than 50 previously unknown species at Salas y Gómez alone. Another candidate, the nutrient-rich Costa Rica Thermal Dome, attracts endangered leatherback sea turtles, blue whales and tuna, while the Emperor Seamounts chain, northwest of Hawai‘i, hosts corals thousands of years old.
Advocates hope to begin designating conservation areas as soon as the treaty goes into effect. While 90 countries had signed on as of mid-May, vowing not to undermine the treaty’s goals, only five—Palau, Chile, Belize, Seychelles and Monaco—of the 60 needed had taken the step of ratification, pledging compliance and possibly national legislation in support. Gjerde says the number of signatories “indicates global enthusiasm for rapidly bringing the treaty into force, hopefully by the U.N. Ocean Conference in June 2025.”
The photos in the slideshow below—from Schmidt’s expedition, taken in January through March of this year—reveal only a tiny sliver of the otherworldly biodiversity the treaty could protect.
Paula Moura is an independent journalist living in Boston.
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Scientists believe this creature—observed in March during a Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition of the Salas y Gómez Ridge reaching some 3,280 feet deep—is a flowervase jewel squid. A species of so-called cock-eyed squids, its one big eye and one small eye help it search for food.
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The dumbo octopus, seen in the southeast Pacific Ocean for the first known time in January, may mean the cephalopod’s range is broader than previously thought.
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A sonar image from February illustrates the tallest of four seamounts off the coast of Chile first mapped by Schmidt. Scientists observed several distinct ecosystems in the underwater mountain range, from sponge gardens to thriving deep-sea coral reefs, indicating the seamounts support multiple vulnerable habitats. Less than 1 percent of Earth’s seamounts have been thoroughly mapped and sampled, with those in the southeast Pacific among the least explored.
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This Chaunacops was observed in January more than 4,000 feet deep in Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park, within Chilean waters. Establishing conservation areas in nearby international waters would increase its protected marine habitat.
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Also spotted in January: a rarely seen whiplash squid, just after inking at a Nazca Ridge seamount.
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A squat lobster blends into coral off Chile in February. All told, the ongoing Schmidt expedition has observed nearly 150 species so far—deep-sea corals, glass sponges, sea urchins, amphipods and more—likely new to science.
