“An agreement is being finalized with France, Spain and Cyprus for a large protected area in the extra-territorial waters of the Mediterranean, which is a great contribution to the 30×30 goal,” said Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, the Italian environment and energy security minister at the Valore Natura conference in January 2023.
The legal framework provides a crucial mechanism in setting up vast marine protected areas (MPAs) in the high seas. The historic treaty plays a critical role in the enforcement of the 30x30 pledge that countries had made in December 2022 at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Canada. The 30x30 target aims to protect a third of the sea (and land) by 2030.
The announcement by conference president, Rena Lee of Singapore, was met by a standing ovation from delegates, who had worked long days and nights to finalize the deal.
(VIDEO: Researcher Al Dove collecting a blood sample. Video by Dr Simon Pierce)
DS: What were some of the challenges encountered when doing underwater ultrasounds? How did the team overcome them?
Technically Speaking is the latest book from best-selling Scuba series author Simon Pridmore. It is a selection of themed talks telling the early history of technical diving—where it came from, how it developed, how it expanded across the world, who the important movers were and how, in the decade from 1989 to 1999, the efforts of a few determined people changed scuba diving forever.
