Explainer-What is the High Seas Treaty to protect world oceans?
By Virginia Furness
LONDON (Reuters) - While many countries have agreed to take steps to protect the vast, ungoverned swathes of the world's oceans, they have yet to see their High Seas Treaty go into effect. This week's U.N. Oceans Conference in the French city of Nice hopes to change that.
WHAT IS THE HIGH SEAS TREATY?
The treaty, signed in 2023, provides a legal framework for creating marine protected areas on the "high seas", or the ocean areas that lie beyond any national jurisdiction.
Currently, less than 3% of the oceans are under some form of protection, although altogether the world's oceans cover two-thirds of the planet.
The treaty contains 75 points covering areas such as protecting, caring for and ensuring responsible use of marine resources, and includes a provision for requiring environmental impact assessments of any economic activities in international waters.
The treaty also aims to ensure that all countries have fair and equitable access to the ocean's resources. While it is widely referred to as the High Seas Treaty, officially it is called the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty.
As of Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said 50 countries had ratified the treaty, with 60 needed for it to go into effect.
Separate to the High Seas Treaty, countries agreed under a 2022 U.N. biodiversity pact to put 30% of their territorial waters under conservation.
WHY DO WE NEED AN OCEAN TREATY?
Oceans support coastal economies and livelihoods through tourism, fishing, shipping, mining, offshore energy and more.
Oceans also absorb about a third of the world's carbon dioxide, or CO2 - the primary gas driving climate change - while ocean-swimming phytoplankton provide about half of the world's oxygen.
But marine life is now struggling, and human industry and development are almost entirely to blame.
More than 1,500 ocean plants and animals are now at risk of extinction, and that number is expected to rise amid ongoing pollution, overfishing, ocean warming and acidification, according to scientists at the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Additionally, new threats to ocean organisms and ecosystems could emerge in coming years in the form of deep-sea mining for rare-earth minerals. In Nice, Macron is expected to urge countries to support postponing sea-bed exploration while researchers work to understand deep sea ecosystems.
Scientists are also concerned about the possibility that governments could look to modify ocean chemistry to boost its capacity for absorbing CO2 - a scenario that researchers say could help to limit global warming but could also have unintended consequences.
WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS FOR THE TREATY?
Macron's news on Monday of 50 governments having ratified the treaty means it is still short by 10 signatures.
The treaty will enter into force 120 days after 60 countries have ratified it. Work then begins on setting up institutions and committees to implement the treaty, while its signatories expect to hold a first conference within a year.
Despite its involvement in the original treaty negotiations, the United States under current President Donald Trump is not expected to ratify the treaty.
WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING AT THE U.N. OCEANS CONFERENCE?
Macron is co-hosting this third U.N. Oceans conference with Costa Rica, and with at least 55 heads of state, business leaders and civil society groups expected to attend the five-day event.
Aside from discussions to advance the treaty, delegates are also expected this week to discuss overfishing, water pollution and other threats to marine life.
They'll also be looking for fresh ideas on how to pay for it all - with ocean-linked financing lagging far behind other sustainable investment areas. For the five years spanning 2015-2019, ocean-related spending totalled $10 billion.
By comparison, the U.N. estimates that every year at least $175 billion is needed for marine protection.
The last U.N. oceans summit was held in Lisbon and co-hosted by Kenya in 2022. The next, co-hosted by Chile and Korea, is set for 2028.
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Explainer-What is the High Seas Treaty to protect world oceans?
By Virginia Furness LONDON (Reuters) - While many countries have agreed to take steps to protect the vast, ungoverned swathes of the world's oceans, they have yet to see their High Seas Treaty go into effect. This week's U.N. Oceans Conference in the French city of Nice hopes to change that. WHAT IS THE HIGH SEAS TREATY? The treaty, signed in 2023, provides a legal framework for creating marine protected areas on the "high seas", or the ocean areas that lie beyond any national jurisdiction. Currently, less than 3% of the oceans are under some form of protection, although altogether the world's oceans cover two-thirds of the planet. The treaty contains 75 points covering areas such as protecting, caring for and ensuring responsible use of marine resources, and includes a provision for requiring environmental impact assessments of any economic activities in international waters. The treaty also aims to ensure that all countries have fair and equitable access to the ocean's resources. While it is widely referred to as the High Seas Treaty, officially it is called the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty. As of Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said 50 countries had ratified the treaty, with 60 needed for it to go into effect. Separate to the High Seas Treaty, countries agreed under a 2022 U.N. biodiversity pact to put 30% of their territorial waters under conservation. WHY DO WE NEED AN OCEAN TREATY? Oceans support coastal economies and livelihoods through tourism, fishing, shipping, mining, offshore energy and more. Oceans also absorb about a third of the world's carbon dioxide, or CO2 - the primary gas driving climate change - while ocean-swimming phytoplankton provide about half of the world's oxygen. But marine life is now struggling, and human industry and development are almost entirely to blame. More than 1,500 ocean plants and animals are now at risk of extinction, and that number is expected to rise amid ongoing pollution, overfishing, ocean warming and acidification, according to scientists at the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Additionally, new threats to ocean organisms and ecosystems could emerge in coming years in the form of deep-sea mining for rare-earth minerals. In Nice, Macron is expected to urge countries to support postponing sea-bed exploration while researchers work to understand deep sea ecosystems. Scientists are also concerned about the possibility that governments could look to modify ocean chemistry to boost its capacity for absorbing CO2 - a scenario that researchers say could help to limit global warming but could also have unintended consequences. WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS FOR THE TREATY? Macron's news on Monday of 50 governments having ratified the treaty means it is still short by 10 signatures. The treaty will enter into force 120 days after 60 countries have ratified it. Work then begins on setting up institutions and committees to implement the treaty, while its signatories expect to hold a first conference within a year. Despite its involvement in the original treaty negotiations, the United States under current President Donald Trump is not expected to ratify the treaty. WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING AT THE U.N. OCEANS CONFERENCE? Macron is co-hosting this third U.N. Oceans conference with Costa Rica, and with at least 55 heads of state, business leaders and civil society groups expected to attend the five-day event. Aside from discussions to advance the treaty, delegates are also expected this week to discuss overfishing, water pollution and other threats to marine life. They'll also be looking for fresh ideas on how to pay for it all - with ocean-linked financing lagging far behind other sustainable investment areas. For the five years spanning 2015-2019, ocean-related spending totalled $10 billion. By comparison, the U.N. estimates that every year at least $175 billion is needed for marine protection. The last U.N. oceans summit was held in Lisbon and co-hosted by Kenya in 2022. The next, co-hosted by Chile and Korea, is set for 2028.
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What dinosaur has 500 teeth? Inside the conveyer belt jaw of Nigersaurus
What dinosaur has 500 teeth and replaced each and every one of them every 14 days? With 15 times more teeth than the human set of 32, Nigersaurus taqueti hacked through low-lying vegetation with choppers like a lawn mower, paleontologist and National Geographic Explorer Paul Sereno told National Geographic just years after he and colleagues first described and named the dinosaur. About as heavy as an adult African forest elephant, this dinosaur would have weighed about two tons and stretched about 30 feet long from nose to the tip of its tail. The herbivore wandered lowlands of western Africa about 105 million years ago in what's now the Republic of Niger. Nigersaurus was one of the most effective plant-eating creatures to have ever evolved. Here's what you need to know about Nigersaurus and its toothy way of life. The bones of Nigersaurus first came to the attention of paleontologists in the middle of the 20th century. Between 1965 and 1972, French paleontologist Philippe Taquet used previous fossil reports to confirm the suspected bonebeds in Niger. His search turned up multiple prehistoric species new to science, such as the sail-backed, duckbilled dinosaur Ouranosaurus and the gharial-like crocodile Sarcosuchus. One site, Gadofaoua, was especially promising and brimming with the bones of large dinosaurs. Taquet did not describe them in detail or name them, as there were so many other fossils in the area to study. The bones would wait 30 years for another team of paleontologists to dig in further. (Was there a dino the size of a hummingbird?) In 1997, a field team organized by Sereno, who is also a National Geographic Explorer, rediscovered the bones at Gadofaoua. 'The locality is quite remote, and the temperatures and shifting sands mean that it can be a challenging place to work,' says University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson Mantilla, who helped name Nigersaurus. Each piece of bone was extremely delicate. Some were so thin, light could shine through them. But after careful excavation, preparation, and study, it was clear that Taquet's sauropod was a new dinosaur unlike any seen before. In 1999, Sereno, Wilson Mantilla, and colleagues presented a scientific description of the plant-eater and named it Nigersaurus taqueti in honor of its country of origin and Taquet. Further finds made the following year filled even more of the skeleton, which showed that Nigersaurus was a very unusual relative of dinosaurs like Diplodocus. Experts found multiple Nigersaurus bones at the site, including neck bones still connected to each other and a jumble of several skull bones.'The skull bones were so strange looking that it was challenging to identify which element we were looking at,' Wilson Mantilla says. Paleontologists have continued studying Nigersaurus and how the dinosaur lived. Its eyes were positioned high on its skull, which may have given the herbivore overlapping visual fields to better watch out for stalking carnivores. A study of the dinosaur's limb bones further indicated that Nigersaurus had thin walls compared to the limb bones of large mammals. (See how these fierce dinos evolved.) Air sacs that invaded and surrounded some of the bones of Nigersaurus, like those found in birds that make their bones hollow, helped keep the dinosaur light enough that the animal did not need bulky bones to support its weight like large mammals do. Having hollow bones supported by air sacs was one of the key traits that allowed dinosaurs like Nigersaurus to get big. While all dinosaurs replace their teeth throughout their lives, Nigersaurus' process was unique. As dino teeth form, they are marked with tiny lines that form each day. 'Counting those lines tells you how old the teeth are,' Wilson Mantilla says. The count on Nigersaurusindicated that each of its teeth was replaced every two weeks, he notes, with seven replacements forming behind the exposed tooth at any one time. The shape of the dinosaur's jaws offered a clue to its dental overachieving. The muzzle of Nigersaurus was square, like a vacuum. Square muzzle shapes are common among animals that graze low to the ground, a hint that Nigersaurus did so too. "Its mouth appears designed for nipping rather than chomping or chewing," Sereno said in a 2007 interview with National Geographic. Wear patterns suggest Nigersaurus' teeth slid by one another like a pair of shears. Such low-growing plants are often tough to eat. Plants like horsetails contain tough, crystal-like material called silica, and vegetation that grew low to the ground would also have a lot of sand or other grit in it Wilson Mantilla says. 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It was one of the first times paleontologists had used CT scans to reconstruct the skull anatomy of a dinosaur. (These ancient fish swam with the dinosaurs, but may not survive humans.) The CT scans also revealed the anatomy and position of the dinosaur's inner ear, which shows us how animals hold their heads and balance their bodies. For Nigersaurus, the digital scan indicated that the herbivore kept its muzzle tilted down toward the ground. Researchers also found that the brain cavity of Nigersaurus showed relatively small parts of the brain relating to smell. From this discovery, researchers can assume Nigersaurus probably wasn't very good at sniffing out approaching carnivores or where the tastiest plants might be. But that doesn't seem to have been a problem for a dinosaur that grazed all day.
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The cast of the skull of Nigersaurus. The fossil skull of Nigersaurus was one of the first dinosaur skulls to be digitally reconstructed from CT scans. Photograph by Ira Block, Nat Geo Image Collection What dinosaur has 500 teeth and replaced each and every one of them every 14 days? With 15 times more teeth than the human set of 32, Nigersaurus taqueti hacked through low-lying vegetation with choppers like a lawn mower, paleontologist and National Geographic Explorer Paul Sereno told National Geographic just years after he and colleagues first described and named the dinosaur. About as heavy as an adult African forest elephant, this dinosaur would have weighed about two tons and stretched about 30 feet long from nose to the tip of its tail. The herbivore wandered lowlands of western Africa about 105 million years ago in what's now the Republic of Niger. Nigersaurus was one of the most effective plant-eating creatures to have ever evolved. Here's what you need to know about Nigersaurus and its toothy way of life. The bones of Nigersaurus first came to the attention of paleontologists in the middle of the 20th century. Between 1965 and 1972, French paleontologist Philippe Taquet used previous fossil reports to confirm the suspected bonebeds in Niger. His search turned up multiple prehistoric species new to science, such as the sail-backed, duckbilled dinosaur Ouranosaurus and the gharial-like crocodile Sarcosuchus. One site, Gadofaoua, was especially promising and brimming with the bones of large dinosaurs. Taquet did not describe them in detail or name them, as there were so many other fossils in the area to study. The bones would wait 30 years for another team of paleontologists to dig in further. (Was there a dino the size of a hummingbird?) Scientists unveil the reconstructed skeleton of Nigersaurus on stage during a press conference at National Geographic. Discovered in 1999, the assembled bones show it was a strange plant eater. Researchers created a sculptural rendition of what they expect the dinosaur's distinct head to look like. Scientists also cast reconstructions of the bones to assemble them in the proper shape of the Nigersaurus. Photograph by Bill O'Leary, The TheIn 1997, a field team organized by Sereno, who is also a National Geographic Explorer, rediscovered the bones at Gadofaoua. 'The locality is quite remote, and the temperatures and shifting sands mean that it can be a challenging place to work,' says University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson Mantilla, who helped name Nigersaurus. Each piece of bone was extremely delicate. Some were so thin, light could shine through them. But after careful excavation, preparation, and study, it was clear that Taquet's sauropod was a new dinosaur unlike any seen before. In 1999, Sereno, Wilson Mantilla, and colleagues presented a scientific description of the plant-eater and named it Nigersaurus taqueti in honor of its country of origin and Taquet. Further finds made the following year filled even more of the skeleton, which showed that Nigersaurus was a very unusual relative of dinosaurs like Diplodocus. What did Nigersaurus look like? Experts found multiple Nigersaurus bones at the site, including neck bones still connected to each other and a jumble of several skull bones. 'The skull bones were so strange looking that it was challenging to identify which element we were looking at,' Wilson Mantilla says. Paleontologists have continued studying Nigersaurus and how the dinosaur lived. Its eyes were positioned high on its skull, which may have given the herbivore overlapping visual fields to better watch out for stalking carnivores. A study of the dinosaur's limb bones further indicated that Nigersaurus had thin walls compared to the limb bones of large mammals. (See how these fierce dinos evolved.) Air sacs that invaded and surrounded some of the bones of Nigersaurus, like those found in birds that make their bones hollow, helped keep the dinosaur light enough that the animal did not need bulky bones to support its weight like large mammals do. Having hollow bones supported by air sacs was one of the key traits that allowed dinosaurs like Nigersaurus to get big. Lurdusaurus and Nigersaurus dinosaurs featured in a recreation of West Africa circa 115 million years ago. Nigersaurus was known to eat vegetation close to the ground. Illustration by Arthur Dorety,While all dinosaurs replace their teeth throughout their lives, Nigersaurus' process was unique. As dino teeth form, they are marked with tiny lines that form each day. 'Counting those lines tells you how old the teeth are,' Wilson Mantilla says. The count on Nigersaurusindicated that each of its teeth was replaced every two weeks, he notes, with seven replacements forming behind the exposed tooth at any one time. The shape of the dinosaur's jaws offered a clue to its dental overachieving. The muzzle of Nigersaurus was square, like a vacuum. Square muzzle shapes are common among animals that graze low to the ground, a hint that Nigersaurus did so too. "Its mouth appears designed for nipping rather than chomping or chewing," Sereno said in a 2007 interview with National Geographic. Wear patterns suggest Nigersaurus' teeth slid by one another like a pair of shears. Such low-growing plants are often tough to eat. Plants like horsetails contain tough, crystal-like material called silica, and vegetation that grew low to the ground would also have a lot of sand or other grit in it Wilson Mantilla says. Feeding on such roughage would have worn down the dinosaur's teeth very quickly, and so Nigersaurus evolved to replace its teeth fast. (Scientists find a new titanosaur dinosaur species in Patagonia.) Experts still have a lot to learn about Nigersaurus and how it evolved to be different from other plant-eating dinosaurs. Studying the unusual herbivore might help experts better understand how such dinosaurs spread all over the planet and thrived for so many millions of years. In time, bones that started as mysteries in the desert may unlock new paleo puzzles. How did researchers piece together Nigersaurus? Paleontologists uncovered the bones of many individual Nigersaurus from Gadofaoua, but no single complete skeleton. Thanks to cutting-edge technology, however, Wilson Mantilla and colleagues were able to make digital scans of the collected Nigersaurus bones in 2007 and adjust them to the same scale to create a reconstruction of the dinosaur. It was one of the first times paleontologists had used CT scans to reconstruct the skull anatomy of a dinosaur. (These ancient fish swam with the dinosaurs, but may not survive humans.) The CT scans also revealed the anatomy and position of the dinosaur's inner ear, which shows us how animals hold their heads and balance their bodies. For Nigersaurus, the digital scan indicated that the herbivore kept its muzzle tilted down toward the ground. Researchers also found that the brain cavity of Nigersaurus showed relatively small parts of the brain relating to smell. From this discovery, researchers can assume Nigersaurus probably wasn't very good at sniffing out approaching carnivores or where the tastiest plants might be. But that doesn't seem to have been a problem for a dinosaur that grazed all day.
