A tiny fraction of the high seas are protected. Why a UN treaty is needed now more than ever

As two weeks of negotiations at United Nations headquarters in New York City wrap up Friday, many hope the culmination will be a legally binding international agreement to conserve and protect marine biodiversity in the high seas.

The treaty has been more than a decade in the making, but at the previous round of talks held earlier this year, delegates failed to nail down the specifics.

With climate change, fishing, shipping and resource extraction intensifying pressure on one of the last wild places on Earth, calls for a UN high seas biodiversity treaty for areas beyond national jurisdiction, also known as BBNJ, are more urgent than ever.

While international waters represent two-thirds of the world's oceans — and 95 per cent of habitable space on the planet — only about one per cent are protected.

"More and more studies have been showing that marine species have been rapidly going extinct and we need to take a bold action," said Jihyun Lee, a youth ambassador on the High Seas Alliance, made up of more than 40 NGOs seeking to conserve the high seas.

"We don't have any time to waste," she said during a press briefing at the UN on Wednesday.

Daniel Wagner, chief scientist of the Ocean Exploration Trust, agrees. He's observed past BBNJ negotiations and said it's critical that nations agree to an overarching treaty enforcing sustainable use of international waters.

"This is an area that for a long time has been a little bit of a Wild West," Wagner said in an interview with CBC News from Honolulu. 

"It's not like there are no absolutely no rules, but there's really a piecemeal and fragmented approach at the moment. We need to bring all of this together and have a holistic way of managing our ocean."

On expeditions aboard the EV Nautilus, a research vessel owned by the Ocean Exploration Trust, Wagner and his fellow scientists study unexplored parts of the ocean and share their discoveries via online live streams to raise awareness.

"When most people think about the high seas, the only image they would think [about] is maybe what you see when you look out of an airplane window — this vast expanse of nothingness and emptiness," he said.

"But when you get to be fortunate, like myself and others ... if you look in the right places, there are some really extraordinary things out there."

From deep-sea corals to ecosystems built around hydrothermal vents, Wagner says there's a remarkable wilderness to be discovered.

"We don't really know what's there. We don't really know the connections of many things," he said.