Official Statement on UNOC-3
June 14th, 2025 - Significant progress has been made this week on ocean protection, thanks largely to the leadership of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPs & LCs), particularly across the Pacific. We applaud globally meaningful commitments from French Polynesia - which has designated over 1 million km² of new marine protected areas, including 900,000 km² of fully protected zones and new artisanal fishing areas - and Samoa, which has enacted a landmark law to sustainably manage 100% of its ocean through a marine spatial plan by 2030. Other encouraging marine protected area designations were announced from Guatemala, Colombia, and other nations.
Equally encouraging is the momentum behind the High Seas Treaty, with 19 additional countries moving toward ratification. We commend those governments that have prioritized domestic approval of this vital agreement. Now, attention must turn to securing the 60 ratifications needed to bring the Treaty into legal force by the time of the UN General Assembly convenes in September. Only then can we begin to truly safeguard international waters, which have long been neglected and unprotected.
The ambition and urgency demonstrated at UNOC-3 deserves to be celebrated. However, achieving the 30 by 30 ocean protection target requires a significantly enhanced pace of designations and action from more countries. Countries in the Global North must step up by creating marine protected areas with genuine conservation standards within their waters and scale up financial support for developing nations, as promised under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Let’s be clear: there is a chronic funding gap. New analysis launched at UNOC with support from Campaign for Nature shows that just 7.5% of the required funding to meet the 30x30 target is currently being spent. Against this stark reality, the absence of major new finance announcements for marine protected areas at UNOC-3 was deeply disappointing. Once again, wealthy nations have not delivered the necessary financial support to Small Island States and other nations in the Global South.
Time is running out. With fewer than five years left to meet our global goal, rhetoric must now give way to delivery. The world agreed to financial commitments for nature in 2022. It is time to honor them through new public financing, smarter taxation, reform of harmful subsidies, and robust regulation.
Beyond the immense role that the ocean plays in regulating our climate and supporting biodiversity, the ocean is a huge part of the global economy. Let us harness the momentum from UNOC-3 to accelerate the creation and expansion of high-quality marine protected areas, deliver the financing needed to achieve the 30x30 goal, and quickly move towards entering the High Seas Treaty into force.
Never before has the ocean received so much high-level political attention. The UN Ocean Conference should not be just a one-week event, but rather the start of a continuous, accelerated, and more effective approach to ocean conservation.
—ENDS—
For Media Enquiries:
Katy Roxburgh - Director of Communications