Environment

Agreement at UN on treaty to protect high seas

United Nations, Mar 4 (EFE).- The United Nations reached an agreement Sunday to establish a treaty that protects the high seas, an instrument that has been negotiated for years and experts and environmental organizations consider vital to save the oceans.

The consensus came after a marathon round of negotiations that started Feb. 20 and was scheduled to close for Friday, but which continued throughout the night and on Saturday, with more than 35 hours of continuous discussions, to iron out the latest differences.

Among other things, the text lays the foundations for the establishment of marine protected areas, which should make it easier to fulfill the international promise to safeguard at least 30 percent of the oceans by the year 2030.

“The ship has reached the coast,” announced the president of the negotiations, an exhausted Rena Lee, to confirm that there was finally a consensus on the document, news received with a standing ovation by the delegations gathered at the UN headquarters. .

The formal adoption of the treaty, however, will have to wait a little longer, until a group of technicians guarantees the uniformity of the terms used in it and it is translated into the six official languages of the UN, according to what the countries agreed Sunday.

Some, including Russia, however, left the door open to reopen some issues because they had not been able to review some points in detail due to the harsh conditions of the final hours of the negotiation and the fact that some of their experts had already left New York. EFE

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