Oceans cover 70 per cent of the Earth\u2019s surface. But, because many of us spend most of our lives on land, the 362 million square kilometres of blue out there aren\u2019t always top of mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While vast, oceans are not empty. They are teeming with life<\/a> and connected to society through history and culture<\/a>, shipping and economic activity, geopolitics<\/a> and recreation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But oceans \u2014 along with coastal people and marine species \u2014 are vulnerable, and good ocean governance is critical<\/a> to protect these expanses from pollution, overfishing<\/a> and climate change, to name just some of the threats<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The laws, institutions and regulations in place for the oceans are a multi-layered patchwork and always a work in progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Common heritage of humankind<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Some characterize oceans as the \u201ccommon heritage of humankind<\/a>.\u201d As such, the United Nations plays a critical role in ocean governance, and the\u00a0UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)<\/a>\u00a0is a key international agreement. The agreement grants coastal and island states authority over swaths of ocean extending 200 nautical miles (360 kilometres) from the shore. These are called exclusive economic zones (EEZ).<\/p>\n\n\n\n EEZs are domestic spaces. Countries enshrine law and delegate authority to state agencies that lead monitoring, management and enforcement in these zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indigenous peoples also assert\u00a0jurisdictional authority<\/a>\u00a0and coastal peoples hold critical insight about coastal and marine ecosystems. Governance is improved when state agencies share power and collaborate. Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oceans cover 70 per cent of the Earth\u2019s surface. But, because many of us spend most of our lives on land, the 362 million square kilometres of blue out there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}