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The Sargasso Sea
4 The Lost City
The White 1
3 Shark Café Hydrothermal Field

The Costa Rica
Thermal Dome 2

5 Atlantis Bank

5 sites identified by IUCN and UNESCO
to be established as World Heritage

High-Sea areas begin at the point beyond the outer limit of the exclusive economic
zones (EEZ), 200 nautical miles off the coast of each country.

High-seas governance was one of the most Five sites are identified as eligible for UNESCO
crucial subjects discussed this year. For Robert classification, given their «Outstanding Universal
Calcagno, Oceanographic Institute General Value»: the Costa Rica Thermal Dome, the White
Director: «High-seas represent more than half Shark Café in the Pacific Ocean, the Sargasso
our planet’s surface but there is almost no Sea, the Lost City Hydrothermal Field in the
international legislation.» Given this legal void, Atlantic Ocean and Atlantis Bank - a submerged
it is impossible to implement conservation and fossil island in the Indian Ocean tropical waters.
protection measures despite their urgent nature. The next step will be to address the legal aspects
High-sea waters are currently threatened by for the sites to establish a status which will
overfishing, plastic and chemical pollution and guarantee their protection, despite their high-sea
over-exploited marine resources. location.

In 1982, during the signature of the United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,
scientific knowledge of high-sea ecosystems
was limited and did not prove their crucial role in
ocean balance. Today, this is clear in everyone’s
mind. Within the framework of UNESCO’s World
Heritage in the High Seas Programme, marine
site coordinator Dr Fanny Douvere presented one
of the joint IUCN publications about these sites
which, over time, will need to be protected.