Online course on biodiversity conservation in the international oceanic spaces

The third Agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) was adopted by consensus in June 2023 with the goal “to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, for the present and in the long term”. It addresses four primary topics: i) marine genetic resources including the fair and equitable sharing of benefits, ii) measures such as area-based management tools, including marine protected areas, iii) environmental impact assessments and iv) capacity building and the transfer of marine technology. Other existing instruments address specific geographies or specific issues. The BBNJ Agreement shall be applied in a manner that does not undermine relevant existing institutions, frameworks, and bodies.

At the occasion of the UN Ocean Conference 2025, an online course on biodiversity conservation in the international oceanic spaces will be launched. It will expose the existing conservation tools to protect biodiversity from human activities in areas beyond national jurisdictions (ABNJ) and explore the added value of the BBNJ Agreement in relation to biodiversity conservation. The objective is to have an overview of the human activities which can potentially impact biodiversity, understand how they can affect biodiversity and see which conservation tools, in the complex ocean governance framework, can be applied. The last part of the course will focus on the BBNJ Agreement and explore how it can have the potential to redefine the relationships among existing international frameworks and bodies and improve their coherence for more holistic ocean governance as described by Kim (2024). The objective of this course is to acculturate the different ocean actors (NGOs, researchers, students, policy-makers, diplomats, etc.) aiming to foster dialogue between them to better implement conservation measures in the ocean in a collaborative way.

This MOOC is produced in the context of a project funded by the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM), SARGADOM (Contribute to a hybrid governance to protect and manage remarkable areas of the high seas: Thermal Dome and Sargasso Sea; https://sargadom.com/en/), in partnership with MarViva, the Sargasso Sea Commission and the French Biodiversity Agency.