Biodiversity stewardship in international spaces

Abstract

Nearly 70% of Earth's surface lies beyond national boundaries – in the deep sea, high seas and Antarctica. Regimes to govern these international spaces originated after the Second World War, representing a fundamental governance transition and challenge in our civilization to balance national interests along with common interests on a global scale. For Earth's biota, such stewardship involves the dynamics of interconnected ecosystems with issues of sustainable development, environmental security and the interplay of diverse institutions. For international spaces, which also include outer space, it was the Antarctic Treaty that began setting standards for species conservation. With advice from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, conservation measures evolved into the 1980 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which introduced an ecosystem approach for the rational use of ‘harvested, dependent and related populations’ living south of the Antarctic Convergence – an ecologically defined area with global importance because of its extensive biomass. With the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, humankind made a huge leap to manage the world ocean holistically across national and international zones that include the high seas and deep sea, which is considered the ‘common heritage of mankind’ with equitable sharing of mineral resources but not biological resources. While the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity establishes conservation of biological diversity as a ‘common concern of humankind’ with scope over processes and activities regardless of where their effects occur, bioprospecting and equitable sharing of genetic-resource benefits remain unresolved from the deep sea and other international spaces. Integrating land, water, atmosphere and biota with forcing from the Sun – the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change provides a management strategy for the Earth system. On this planetary scale, balancing the governance of nation states and international spaces is critical to conserving Earth's biodiversity.