Our ocean is bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. Greater protection is urgently needed.

Last month brought grim news: The Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral system in the world, is experiencing its fifth mass bleaching event in the past eight years. Unfortunately, it’s far from alone. Reef habitats in the Atlantic, Pacific, and potentially Indian Oceans are also likely to experience bleaching in the coming months. 

Alberto van Klaveren Stork is Chile’s foreign affairs minister. Patricia E. Harris is the chief executive officer of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Coral reef bleaching is a danger sign for the whole world. It occurs when heatwaves drive up ocean temperatures, which robs corals of the algae that give them their nutrients and color, threatening the food chain that billions of people depend on for survival and sustenance – and, often, employment.

And the more marine ecosystems deteriorate, the less ability they have to capture carbon and lock it away in the seabed, fueling even more bleaching, more harm to the food chain, and more extreme weather.

To give the ocean a fighting chance against climate change and the biodiversity loss it causes, countries need to move quickly in ratifying a landmark United Nations treaty that fills a glaring gap in international law – and get to work implementing it.

The agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) – known as the Treaty of the High Seas – seeks to strengthen global ocean governance. One important innovation will be countries’ new ability to create networks of “marine protected areas” as a complement to the conservation policies in their national waters. 

That increased reach matters because two-thirds of the ocean lies beyond national jurisdictions, where marine life is most vulnerable to overfishing, as well as to future threats such as deep-sea mining.

With many coastal communities dependent on species that spend part of their lives far from shore, the new ability to set up protected areas in the high seas will be critical in ensuring the food security of some of the world’s poorest places.

There is encouraging momentum behind the U.N. treaty, which was the product of nearly two decades of multilateral negotiations. Chile, with its rich biodiversity and coastline 4,300 kilometers long, was a leading voice that helped secure the final agreement. Since the treaty officially opened for signature in September, nearly 90 countries have signed.

Now, for it to enter into force, at least 60 have to ratify it. Chile became the first Latin American country to ratify, joining Palau, which ratified earlier in the year. 

When the treaty comes into force, Chile will work closely with community leaders to expand its national leadership to the high seas. One priority is the Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges, two chains of underwater mountains that stretch nearly 3,000 kilometers beyond Chile’s national waters and shelter more than 80 threatened or endangered species. 

This area has the potential to become the first large-scale, high seas marine protected area created by the BBNJ treaty. It could help build resilience in fish populations and safeguard the culture of Pacific Islanders who have been using the ridges as a highway for centuries.

Chile and Bloomberg Philanthropies are working together with other partners in the Coral Reefs of the High Seas Coalition to establish it. Our shared goal is for it to serve as a replicable model that can inform the urgent efforts of more countries worldwide.

Developing nations, which played a key role in crafting the U.N. treaty, may lack the resources and capacity to ratify and implement it. To support those nations and their continued leadership, Chile has proposed to host the treaty secretariat in the Pacific coast city of Valparaiso, and Bloomberg Philanthropies has joined other foundations to invest 10 million USD in support of treaty ratification and implementation across the Global South. 

This week, there is an opportunity to generate even more global momentum. Representatives from national governments will attend the Our Ocean conference in Greece. We will urge all countries to signal their intention to speedily ratify the treaty.

The faster that nations sign the treaty, the faster we can all create a healthy, resilient, thriving ocean for generations to come.