The European Commission on Monday presented a proposal to integrate the international Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction’ (BBNJ) Agreement, which aims to protect the ocean, tackle environmental degradation, fight climate change, and curb biodiversity loss, into EU law. This should help the Member States with the implementation in their national laws.
Signed by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on behalf of the European Union in September 2023, this Agreement – also known as the Treaty of the High Seas – “will help reach the goals and targets set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework“, the EU Commission says. “This includes protecting at least 30% of the ocean by 2030 and increasing benefit sharing from genetic resources and digital sequence information”.
The EU does not mention, that the agreement does not protect the coastal waters for example at the African west coast, where local fishermen are without work, because the European fishing industry is emptying the waters.
Map: Kaiwahine22, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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