EU unveils Ocean Pact ahead of UN conference in France
The European Commission presented a plan aimed at better protecting oceans on Thursday, ahead of the UN Oceans Conference (UNOC) in Nice, France, next week.
It says the European Ocean Pact is a 'comprehensive' roadmap to protect the ocean, promote a blue economy and support the well-being of people living in coastal areas.
The pact brings together EU ocean policies under one single framework to address threats facing the bloc's oceans.
It lays out several key priorities, including protecting and restoring ocean health, boosting the EU's blue economy, supporting coastal and island communities, advancing ocean research, enhancing maritime security and defence, and strengthening ocean diplomacy.
'It will not only benefit the planet, but also the people who call the coast their home, and the generations who will steward our oceans tomorrow,' European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans, Costas Kadis, added that it wasn't just a 'message in a bottle' but a concrete plan for action.
"It also offers immense potential for more investments in a sustainable blue economy, and it is key for our security," he added.
Headline pledges include proposing a new European law on the oceans by 2027 and revising two maritime directives to better protect biodiversity.
But environmental NGOs aren't so sure. While the pact shows 'tentative steps' in the right direction, they say there are 'critical gaps' which must be addressed. They consider it a missed opportunity for the EU to show leadership at the UNOC, where it will present the Pact next week.
In a joint statement, a group of six leading environmental NGOs said the Pact falls short of delivering the urgent action and binding targets that are needed to protect oceans.
BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, Oceana, Seas At Risk, Surfrider Foundation Europe, and the WWF European Policy Office welcomed the announcement but warned that to be successful, it must lead to the immediate implementation of existing obligations and include legally binding targets.
Vera Coelho, deputy vice-president of Oceana in Europe, said it was a 'missed opportunity' for the EU to show leadership at the upcoming UNOC.
'It proposes to continue the same failed, case-by-case approach that has enabled destructive practices like bottom trawling to continue for decades inside the EU's so-called 'protected' areas,' Coelho explains.
'It opens the door to revising key pieces of EU law, such as the Common Fisheries Policy, rather than proposing an implementation and enforcement strategy to address the real root of the ocean's multiple crises: lack of political will by member states to meet agreed targets and implement EU law.
'By deferring real action, this lacklustre Pact puts at risk the future of Europe's seas and of the people who rely on them.'
The NGOs are urging EU institutions and member states to strengthen the pact with concrete measures and ensure that ocean protection becomes central to ocean-related EU laws.
'While the Commission promises in the Ocean Pact to work on enforcement, it falls short, offering no concrete plan for how ocean laws, which exist on paper, will actually be implemented at sea,' adds Juliet Stote, law and policy advisor on marine ecosystems at ClientEarth.
'Currently, EU laws are continuously breached - with destructive activities such as bottom trawling routinely taking place in Marine Protected Areas, and overfishing continuing in EU waters - this must stop.'
Paris's Seine could be the next river granted legal personhood under plans announced by Mayor Anne Hidalgo yesterday.
Paris City Council has called on Parliament to pass a law giving the River Seine rights, so that "an independent guardian authority' can defend it in court, according to yesterday's resolution.
It follows a swell of similar 'rights for nature' breakthroughs since New Zealand first recognised the Whanganui River as a living entity in 2017. And is another step forward in Paris's bid to protect the Seine from pollution.
'From the reclamation of the banks in 2016 to the historic swimming in the Seine during the Paris Games, to the improvement of water quality, we have never stopped acting to restore our river to its rightful place!' Hidalgo wrote in a LinkedIn post yesterday.
The foundations of the plan were laid by a citizens' convention on the future of the Seine, which concluded last month.
50 citizens chosen at random questioned experts and took part in weeks of debate in order to reach a collective opinion. They concluded that the Seine should have fundamental rights, including 'the right to exist, to flow and to regenerate.'
On the basis of this opinion, the City of Paris is tabling a bill in Parliament to give the Seine the rights to be properly protected.
Une publication partagée par Anne Hidalgo (@annehidalgo)
'Recognising rights to the oceans, rivers or the Seine is neither a symbolic gesture nor a legal fantasy: it is a political response to the ecological emergency. It is urgent to act!' Hidalgo added.
The Seine must be considered an ecosystem that "no one can claim ownership of", where the preservation of life takes "precedence over everything", according to the convention.
Paris has been on a major cleanup mission on the Seine's behalf in recent years, spending €1.4 billion on its recovery. That includes investments like building a giant underground tub to store wastewater so that it doesn't run into the river.
It received a boost in the run-up to the Olympics last year, as French authorities sought to get the river clean enough to host water sports events. After much speculation, failed E. coli tests, and one Mayoral swim, some Olympic events were able to go ahead.
But a plan to open the Seine for public swimming last summer was delayed until this year. Now, authorities say it will be opened up at three points from 5 July.
Despite ongoing issues from pollution, rising water temperatures, and pesticide runoff, the Seine has been getting markedly healthier. As the citizens' convention noted, the river is now home to around 40 species of fish - up from just four in 1970.
Opening the river up to the public this summer could present "additional risks", it warned, and so will need to be carefully managed.
Communities around the world have campaigned for fragile ecosystems like rivers and mountains to be afforded legal rights in order to better protect them.
The legislation protecting the Whanganui River combines Western legal precedent with Indigenous beliefs, as Maori people have long considered it a living entity.
In 2022, Spain granted personhood status to Europe's biggest saltwater lagoon, the Mar Menor, marking the first time a European ecosystem gained the right to the conservation of its species and habitats, and protection from harmful activities such as intensive agriculture.
Last year, an Ecuadorian court ruled that pollution had violated the rights of the Machángara River, which runs through Quito. It enforced an article of Ecuador's Constitution that recognises the rights of nature.
Hidalgo wants to see the Seine join this privileged company. 'Paris is committed to putting the Seine back in its rightful place, in the heart of our city and as close as possible to its inhabitants,' she wrote.
'A new adventure begins!'
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