Nature rarely recognizes national boundaries. Many Australian birds, for example, are annual visitors, dividing their time between Southeast Asia, Russia and the Pacific Islands.
However, most efforts to protect ecological processes and habitats are designed and implemented by individual nations. These traditional conservation approaches are not only geographically limited, but they also fail to address the problems that cross borders and cause ecosystems to deteriorate.
our new investigation shows that international collaboration and environmental management across national borders, a truly cross-border approach, are essential. Our focus is an international environmental agreement that has recently entered into force in the Latin American and Caribbean region.
Known as the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Affairs in Latin America and the Caribbean – or, more commonly, as the Escazú Agreement – offers a promising example of new strategies to tackle this cross-border challenge.
What is the Escazú Agreement?
In 2018, 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean were invited to sign and ratify the historic Escazú Agreement, the first legally binding environmental agreement that explicitly integrates human rights with environmental issues.
So far, it has been ratified by 12 signatory countries; 11 other signatory countries have signed it but have not yet ratified it. As we detailed in our recent article:
The agreement outlines an approach to improve the protection of environmental defenders, increase public participation in environmental decision-making, and promote cooperation among countries for the conservation of biodiversity and human rights.
The Escazú Agreement and human rights
Countries in this region share transboundary species such as the jaguar, as well as marine reserves that contain immense biodiversity (including 1,577 endemic fish species).
But the Escazú Agreement is not just about flora and fauna. It also highlights the importance of human rights and public participation in environmental management, elements that are also vitally important to transboundary conservation.
Latin America and the Caribbean have a history of disputed maritime claims and a mismatch between the management of land and maritime jurisdictions.
In the past, environmental protections and complexities of jurisdiction have restricted the rights of indigenous peoples who traditionally fish in these areas.
This is where the Escazú Agreement could have contributed. It sets guidelines for public participation and may have helped give the public a voice Indian people.
But Colombia and many island states have yet to ratify the Escazú Agreement. Doing so would help with these issues in the future.
Many biodiverse countries with high levels of human rights violations and sharing multiple ecosystems and species have not yet ratified the agreement.
Cross-border maritime conservation is needed
The ocean’s borders are more confused. About 90% of marine species compared to 53% of terrestrial species have habitats and migration ranges that cross national borders. Countries with large numbers of transboundary marine species include the US, Australia and Japan.
Many of Australia’s iconic oceanic species, such as great white sharks, sea turtles and humpback whales, are international migrants found in over 100 countries.
Even species that do not move, such as plants or corals, are often widely distributed. Take, for example, slimy sea lettuce ( ulva lacuca ), which grows along the coasts of nearly 200 countries.
Marine species essentially share an ocean, making transboundary management even more difficult. Not only can threats like pollution spread rapidly over great distances in ocean currents, our traditional concept of sovereignty and borders makes even less sense in the ocean than on land.
Many countries must cooperate to protect the distribution of species over vast expanses of the ocean.
a beacon of hope
There is no doubt that international collaboration adds challenges to environmental stewardship.
However, the recent Escazú Agreement offers a ray of hope in forging fair international environmental agreements that protect the environment and human rights.
Signing deals like these is just the first step. Next, we must work to implement them consistently on land or at sea, in all countries, and in a way that includes local stakeholders.
The nations of the world have accepted the idea that we must cooperate to combat climate change. We will also need international collaboration to protect the vast majority of the Earth’s biodiversity and natural systems.
This article was written by Rebecca K. Runting, Professor of Space Science at the University of Melbourne; Leslie Roberson, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland; and Sofía López-Cubillos, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland. It is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Article in English