The European Union once again missed an opportunity to protect the deep seas at a key meeting of the United Nations held early last month.

Governments and oceans experts from over 100 countries gathered at the UN to discuss the world's oceans before the next UN General Assembly. A major focus of the meeting was how to protect deep-water corals and "seamounts", which support hundreds of thousands or possibly even millions of unknown species and hold potential cures to human diseases. This biodiversity is threatened by deep-water bottom trawl fishing which rakes over them with devastating effect.

The question on the minds of many delegations was whether the EU - represented by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs - would play a leadership role. The EU has often called for the protection of the world's major reservoirs of biodiversity, such as tropical rainforests, but the EU also takes the lion's share of the bottom trawl catch in international waters, with Spain accounting for some two-thirds of the EU catch.

Sadly, protecting the interests of the large-scale trawl industry in Spain won out over protecting biodiversity, at least this time. Internal divisions within the delegation prevented the EU from arriving at a position until the meeting was nearly over. While the delegation's discussions were held in secret, word leaked out from a variety of frustrated participants that Spain was, as usual, the major obstacle to progress. In fact, when it came to negotiating the final agreement on bottom trawl fishing and vulnerable high seas ecosystems the European Commission called for the removal of the words "bottom trawling" from the text.

Despite this dismal performance, there is hope that Europe may yet come around. The fact that the EU delegation was divided means that Spain did not simply get its own way. Public pressure, bolstered by strong scientific evidence, will continue to mount before the UN General Assembly once again takes up the issue of high seas bottom trawling and the protection of the deep seas in the fall.

The role of the European Commission in this affair is absolutely critical as it represents the EU as a whole in these negotiations and must play a leadership role in both shaping a common European position as well as negotiating a global agreement to protect the biodiversity of the deep sea.

In 1967, Arvid Pardo, Malta's Ambassador to the UN, had called the deep seabed of the international waters of the world's oceans the "common heritage of mankind" whose benefits should be shared by all nations. His speech ultimately resulted in the negotiation of the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Today, the riches of the deep sea are increasingly being destroyed by deep-water bottom trawlers moving into international waters. The benefits that Dr Pardo envisaged are being irreparably lost to present and future generations. Once again, the question is: Can Joe Borg, as the European Commissioner for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, lead the EU to ensure the protection of the biodiversity of the deep seas, the common heritage of humankind?

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