Actress Jane Fonda is urging the United Nations to protect marine biodiversity by enacting a Global Ocean Treaty that would make 30% of the world’s oceans into marine sanctuaries by 2030.
On Monday, Fonda, who has been working with Greenpeace, delivered 5.5 million signatures from 157 different countries to Rena Lee, president of the U.N. negotiations, demanding a “strong Global Ocean Treaty,” The Associated Press reported.
What is the Global Ocean Treaty?
The U.N. resumed talks Monday on the treaty, which would “create, for the first time, a coordinated approach to establishing marine protected areas on the high seas,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Monica Medina said, per the AP.
The treaty would ban fishing in 30% of the world’s oceans, which would be turned into marine sanctuaries by 2030 as part of the U.N. Biodiversity Conference’s recent biodiversity agreement.
In a press briefing, Fonda explained that the treaty is aimed at protecting marine life, which the actress referred to as “our brethren in the ocean.”
“We need a Global Ocean Treaty and we need it now. It is at our own peril to delay any further. I urge you as a mother, a grandmother and a citizen of this world — let’s set aside the politics, the special interests, and the inertia that tends to drag big, bold ideas into the ground, and let’s get this done — for every life on Earth,” Fonda stated, according to a press release from Greenpeace.