The plan to ban fishing in more than half the world’s oceans Create an account

Deadliest catch?

Dan Rafla/Aurora Photos

By James Randerson

IT IS one of the planet’s last true wildernesses, yet a handful of the world’s wealthiest nations are plundering its riches to satisfy the appetites of luxury consumers – all with the help of billions in public money.

The great blue wilderness in question is the “high seas” – the 58 per cent of the ocean outside the 200-nautical-mile limit that defines the area each coastal country can exploit as an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The vast majority of the high seas is a fishing free-for-all with almost no legal protection, but now a bold idea is taking root: why not ban fishing there altogether?

The plan might seem an impossible conservation dream, especially with a new US president who has rejected internationalist foreign policy and environmental protections, but it has been gaining momentum. At the Our Ocean conference, hosted by the US Department of State in Washington DC in September, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke warmly about the notion of placing the high seas off limits. Turning this vast area of ocean into a marine protected area would be “an extraordinary step”, he argued.

The notion has obvious appeal for conservationists, but that isn’t enough by itself. The fact that talk of a ban has reached diplomatic circles is testament to the persistence of a handful of marine scientists who have steadily built the ecological, economic and social case underpinning it.

The idea was put on the map in 2014 by Christopher Costello at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who tackled one of the chief objections. Seafood is a vital source of ...