THREAD: The high seas represent 66% of our ocean, but only 1% is protected.

A high seas treaty would pave the way for much-needed marine protected areas in international waters.

For most of the high seas, there’s currently no way to establish marine protected areas—just a patchwork of organizations that overlap and operate in silos.

That’s where the high seas treaty comes in.

If finalized by the UN, it would give the world a way to create and manage a network of marine protected areas—and conserve critical areas of our ocean.

But what to protect first? We analyzed dozens of sites, taking multiple factors into account:

We’ve identified 10 places with extreme conservation value—10 places that could form the first generation of high seas marine protected areas.

For a deeper dive on these 10 unparalleled places—and how the high seas treaty could make protection possible—please see our new report. https://pew.org/3aFs18z