Our oceans are vital; they are our lifeline. But they are also a lawless place where protection and regulation tend to be lacking. Last month, after years of negotiations, a new global conservation plan was agreed to protect the oceans, with United Nations (UN) members adopting the first agreement to protect the world’s oceans outside national borders. This UN High Seas Treaty is a major step forward in protecting our oceans.
So what is this treaty?
Two-thirds of our oceans are internationally recognized, but only 1% of the “high seas” has been protected so far. The treaty will create a roadmap for designated marine protected areas, guarantee that members will share in the profits from commercialized products on the high seas, and also create programs to strengthen marine research in developing countries. The treaty will also help achieve the global goal of protecting 30% of our oceans by 2030.
Why do we need to protect our oceans?
Our oceans regulate our climate, provide us with food, livelihoods, and economic progress. For too long, we have assumed that the oceans were boundless and immune to our human influences, but we were wrong. Our oceans are in dire straits due to climate change, overfishing, deep-sea mining, the impacts of shipping, and more.
Our passion for the ocean deeply affects us and our work. We strive to do our best to ensure that future generations can enjoy sailing. Because where would we be without the ocean? There are millions of species living in and around our oceans that need to be protected.
What are we doing to help?
At Most Sailing, we have a few small initiatives that we can do to protect our oceans as much as we can in our company processes. We continue to add to some of the measures we have in place.
We know that when we clean our boats, everything you use literally ends up in our oceans. That’s why we use eco-friendly marine products when we wash our boats to minimize the damage that other toxic products have.
This also applies to toiletries and onboard cleaning products. These also end up in our seas. That’s why we offer eco-friendly and ecological cleaning products to our guests who rent our boats.
Paper usage also consumes a lot of trees, energy and water. Unnecessary paper is used during the check-in and check-out processes of a boat rental. We use the Floatist app to prevent this and of course to use our time more effectively. This app not only makes our job easier, but also eliminates the need to use paper.
Water consumption is very important, so we have installed an aerator (aerator) on every tap head on all boats to minimize water usage on our boats.
Carbon emissions are another big factor in the health of our oceans. Not only are we specializing in nature’s own energy production through sailing, we’re also installing solar panels on our boats at maximum capacity, so our guests use less energy and have less to drive. We’re also offering electric outboards instead of petrol outboards for our service boats.
We know our oceans are under great threat. That’s why we’re continuing to take these small but important steps to protect our seas and ensure they can be enjoyed by future generations. These are collaborative efforts that we all need.
What are you doing to help? We’d love to hear from you.
