The President of the Republic this Sunday hailed the “historic agreement” reached at the United Nations for the protection of the high seas, considering it “fundamental for the entire international community and for Portugal”, which “has assumed a leading position” in the preservation of the ocean .
In a note published in site of the Presidency of the Republic reads that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa “congratulates himself on obtaining the historic agreement”, reached “after ten years of hard negotiations”.
“It is fundamental for the entire international community and for Portugal, which has taken a firm and leading position in preserving the ocean, investing in its knowledge and in the sustainable development of a blue economy”, says the President of the Republic.
He also stresses that the treaty enshrines “one of the commitments expressed in the Lisbon Declaration Our Ocean, Our Future, Our Responsibility“, adopted at the United Nations Ocean Conference, which took place between June 27th and July 1st last year in Portugal.
That commitment, according to the head of state, was to “obtain an ambitious agreement, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction” .
Member States of the United Nations (UN) reached an agreement on Saturday to establish a treaty to protect the high seas, after more than 15 years of negotiations. Consensus was reached after a marathon of negotiations that began on February 20 and was supposed to end on Friday, but which continued overnight until Saturday, with more than 35 hours of straight discussions.
The document defines, among other things, the bases for the establishment of protected maritime areas, which should facilitate the international commitment to safeguard at least 30% of the oceans by 2030. The formal adoption of the treaty, however, will have to wait until a group of technicians ensures the uniformity of the terms used in the document and that it is translated into the six official languages of the UN.