NICE:The third UN Ocean Conference opens Monday as pressure mounts for nations to turn decades of promises into real protection for the sea.
The summit comes as just 2.7 percent of the ocean is effectively protected from destructive extractive activities, according to the nonprofit Marine Conservation Institute. That’s far below the target agreed under the “30x30” pledge to conserve 30 percent of land and sea by 2030.
Atop this year’s agenda is ratification of the High Seas Treaty. Adopted in 2023, the treaty would for the first time allow nations to establish marine protected areas in international waters, which cover nearly two-thirds of the ocean and are largely ungoverned.
“It’s the Wild West out there with countries just fishing anywhere without any sort of regulation, and that needs to change,” said Mauro Randone, regional projects manager at the World Wildlife Fund’s Mediterranean Marine Initiative. “The high seas belong to everyone and no one practically at the same time, and countries are finally committing to establish some rules.”
The ocean is critical in stabilizing Earth’s climate and sustaining life. It generates 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe, absorbs around 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and captures more than 90 percent of the excess heat caused by those emissions. Without a healthy ocean, experts warn, climate goals will remain out of reach.
The treaty will only come into force once 60 countries ratify it. As of Monday, just 32 countries had. Advocates hope UNOC can build enough momentum to cross the threshold, which would allow for the first official Oceans Conference of Parties.
“Two-thirds of the ocean is areas beyond national jurisdiction — that’s half our planet,” said Minna Epps, director of global ocean policy the International Union for Conservation of Nature. “We cannot possibly protect 30 percent of the ocean if it doesn’t include the high seas.”
South Korea, France and the European Union have championed the treaty, but most large ocean nations have yet to ratify it, including the rest of the G20. Thousands of attendees are expected in Nice — from delegates and heads of state to scientists and industry leaders. The United States has yet to confirm a formal delegation.
Moving from protections on paper to something real

Beyond new commitments, the conference highlights the growing gap between marine protection declarations and real-world conservation.
France, the conference co-host, claims to have surpassed the 30 percent target for marine protection. But environmental groups say only 3 percent of French waters are fully protected from harmful activities like bottom trawling and industrial fishing.
In 2024 alone, more than 100 bottom-trawling vessels were recorded spending over 17,000 hours fishing within France’s six marine nature parks, according to ocean advocacy group Oceana.
“The government declares these as protected areas, but this is a lie,” said Enric Sala, founder of National Geographic Pristine Seas marine reserve project. “Most of it is political box-ticking. It’s all paper parks.”
That criticism is echoed across the continent. A new World Wildlife Fund report found that although more than 11 percent of Europe’s marine area is designated for protection, just 2 percent of EU waters have management plans in place.
Fabien Boileau, director of marine protected areas at France’s Office for Biodiversity, acknowledged the presence of bottom trawling in French protected areas, but said it was part of a phased strategy.
“In France, we made the choice to designate large marine protected areas with relatively low levels of regulation at first, betting that stronger protections would be developed over time through local governance,” he said. “Today, we’re gradually increasing the number of zones with stricter protections within those areas.”
France’s Port-Cros: A model for conservation

While many marine protected areas struggle with enforcement, others show what real protection can achieve. Off the southern coast of France, Port-Cros National Park is one of the oldest marine reserves in the Mediterranean. There, strict anchoring bans have allowed vast seagrass meadows to grow undisturbed. Massive groupers patrol rocky outcrops, brightly colored nudibranchs munch on algae, and schools of large corbs glide through the shallows, undisturbed by fishing lines.
“Thanks to the protections that have been in place since 1963, we can observe species that are much larger than elsewhere in the Mediterranean and at a much higher density than in other areas,” said Hubert Flavigny, manager of Mio Palmo dive center in Hyeres, France.
Still, such examples remain exceptions.
Advocates say industrial fishing lobbies continue to resist stricter protections, despite evidence that well-managed reserves boost long-term fisheries through the “spillover effect,” whereby marine life flourishes in nearby waters.
“Protection is not the problem — overfishing is the problem,” said Sala. “The worst enemy of the fishing industry is themselves.”
Frustrated by government inaction, environmental groups have taken enforcement into their own hands. In May, Greenpeace dropped 15 limestone boulders into France’s Golfe du Lion, aiming to physically block bottom trawling in a marine area that has long been designated for protection. The protected zone was established in 2008 to preserve deep-sea ecosystems, yet 12 trawlers continue to operate there, despite scientific warnings of ecological collapse, according to activist group MedReAct. The Golfe is now one of the most overfished areas in the Mediterranean.
What will UNOC deliver?
The conference will feature 10 panels on topics such as blue finance, sustainable fisheries and plastic pollution. Deep sea mining is expected to feature in broader discussions, while small island states are likely to use the platform to advocate for increased climate adaptation funding. The outcome of these discussions will form the basis of the Nice Ocean Action Plan — a declaration of voluntary commitments to be adopted by consensus and presented at the United Nations in New York this July.
“There cannot be a healthy planet without a healthy ocean,” said Peter Thomson, UN special envoy for the ocean. “It’s urgent business for us all.”

BEED: On a small farm in India’s Maharashtra state, Mirabai Khindkar said the only thing her land grew was debt, after crops failed in drought and her husband killed himself.
Farmer suicides have a long history in India, where many are one crop failure away from disaster, but extreme weather caused by climate change is adding fresh pressure.
Dwindling yields due to water shortages, floods, rising temperatures and erratic rainfall, coupled with crippling debt, have taken a heavy toll on a sector that employs 45 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people.
Mirabhai’s husband Amol was left with debts to loan sharks worth hundreds of times their farm’s annual income, after the three-acre (one-hectare) soybean, millet and cotton plot withered in scorching heat.
He swallowed poison last year.
“When he was in the hospital, I prayed to all the gods to save him,” said 30-year-old Mirabai, her voice breaking.
Amol died a week later, leaving behind Mirabai and three children. Her last conversation with him was about debt.
Their personal tragedy is replicated daily across Marathwada, a region in Maharashtra of 18 million, once known for fertile farmland.
Last year, extreme weather events across India affected 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) of cropland — an area bigger than Belgium — according to the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment research group.
Over 60 percent of that was in Maharashtra.
“Summers are extreme, and even if we do what is necessary, the yield is not enough,” said Amol’s brother and fellow farmer Balaji Khindkar.
“There is not enough water to irrigate the fields. It doesn’t rain properly.”
Between 2022 and 2024, 3,090 farmers took their own lives in Marathwada, an average of nearly three a day, according to India’s Minister of Agriculture Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Government statistics do not specify what drove the farmers to kill themselves, but analysts point to several likely factors.
“Farmer suicides in India are a consequence of the crisis of incomes, investment and productivity that you have in agriculture,” said R. Ramakumar, professor of development studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Farming across many Indian smallholdings is done largely as it has been for centuries, and is highly dependent on the right weather at the correct time.
“What climate change and its vulnerabilities and variabilities have done is to increase the risks in farming,” Ramakumar said.
This “is leading to crop failures, uncertainties... which is further weakening the economics of cultivation for small and marginal farmers.”
The government could support farmers with better insurance schemes to cope with extreme weather events, as well as investments in agricultural research, Ramakumar said.
“Agriculture should not be a gamble with the monsoon.”
Faced with uncertain weather, farmers often look to stem falling yields by investing in fertilizers or irrigation systems.
But banks can be reluctant to offer credit to such uncertain borrowers.
Some turn to loan sharks offering quick cash at exorbitant interest rates, and risking catastrophe if crops fail.
“It is difficult to make ends meet with just farming,” Mirabai said, standing outside her home, a tin-roofed hut with patch-cloth walls.
Her husband’s loans soared to over $8,000, a huge sum in India, where the average monthly income of a farming household is around $120.
Mirabai works on other farms as a laborer but could not pay back the debt.
“The loan instalments piled up,” she said, adding that she wants her children to find jobs outside of farming when they grow up.
“Nothing comes out of the farm.”
The agricultural industry has been in a persistent crisis for decades.
And while Maharashtra has some of the highest suicide rates, the problem is nationwide.
Thirty people in the farming sector killed themselves every day in 2022, according to national crime records bureau statistics.
At another farm in Marathwada, 32-year-old farmer Shaikh Imran took over the running of the family smallholding last year after his brother took his own life.
He is already more than $1,100 in debt after borrowing to plant soybean.
The crop failed.
Meanwhile, the pop of explosives echoes around as farmers blast wells, hoping to hit water.
“There’s no water to drink,” said family matriarch Khatijabi. “Where shall we get water to irrigate the farm?“