The high seas, which make up about two-thirds of the world’s oceans and are broadly defined as areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), remain among the least governed and most contested spaces in our oceans.
This year, we began operationalising the High Seas Treaty, a landmark international agreement to protect marine biodiversity in the ABNJ. The treaty seeks to address longstanding gaps in global ocean governance by establishing a legal framework for the conservation and sustainable use of marine resources outside national boundaries. Its focus is on the following Key Objectives and Provisions.
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs):
Establishes a process for creating and managing MPAs on the high seas to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems.Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs):
Requires countries to assess the potential impacts of human activities (like fishing, shipping, or deep-sea mining) on marine biodiversity before they occur.Marine Genetic Resources (MGRs):
Sets rules for sharing benefits from the use of genetic material from marine organisms (e.g., for pharmaceuticals or biotechnology), ensuring equity between developed and developing nations.Capacity Building and Technology Transfer:
Supports developing countries with access to marine science, technology, and training for fair participation in ocean conservation and research.Institutional and Governance Mechanisms:
Creates a Conference of the Parties (COP) to oversee implementation, compliance, and decision-making, similar to frameworks in other global treaties like the Paris Agreement
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and related international organisations have traditionally served as the basis for “governing” the oceans. However, environmental damage, climate change, species loss, and marine pollution remain significant problems.
While the High Seas agreement is a good thing (and I recently participated in a deep study to foresee the potential of MCS activities in Marine Protected Areas), it remains Einstein’s quote, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”
I understand that we are not going to alter the “ocean world order” established by UNCLOS. Still, we are attempting to address a problem by refining the tools that originate from the same tools (and mindset) that created it.
Perhaps because of my recent reflections on my experiences in Japan in terms of “conservation”, my suggestion of the high seas pockets as MPAs and because I have spent over half my life in Pacific Islander societies—spanning what anthropologists describe as Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia (labels locals themselves rarely identify with)—I have been fortunate to learn a little about my hosts’ worldviews and their traditions of navigation, stewardship, customary marine tenure, and relational ocean ethics.
So, while I wait five hours to check in for my next flight, I took some time to explore how these traditions could serve as a rich conceptual and practical resource for reimagining high seas governance: by reframing the ocean as relational and communal, integrating customary governance systems into large-scale ocean management, and combining indigenous knowledge with global institutions.
While totally idealistic and utopian, could it be a shift from the “freedom of the high seas” as a key tenet of the UNCLOS regime to one based on responsibility, reciprocity, and guardianship?
Here are some of the key issues under which the traditional ways could be used or adapted:
Customary marine tenure and seasonal closures
One key aspect of Pacific Island tradition is the practice of customary marine tenure: local communities hold rights and responsibilities over specific marine areas, regulate access, and implement rotational closures or bans to allow resource regeneration. For example, the “ra’ui” system in the Cook Islands manages access to fishing grounds through temporary restrictions, reflecting local ecological knowledge and traditional governance. In fact, and not surprisingly, we also have it in New Zealand as "rāhui," a temporary prohibition or restriction on accessing a specific area or resource, rooted in Māori custom (tikanga). It is placed to protect the area's mauri (life essence) or tapu (sacredness), and is used for reasons like conservation, resource recovery, or to mark a place of death. Rāhui can be voluntary, imposed by a local iwi (tribe), or—very relevantly—formally gazetted under legislation such as the Fisheries Act, which is what we have in Waiheke Island, where I have been living for the last 20 years.
Similarly, in Palau, a customary “bul” has been used to close entire zones to fishing when resources become scarce, effectively combining local observation with enforcement. These local governance forms highlight stewardship, flexibility, and community accountability rather than centralised regulation.
Traditional navigational and ocean-wayfinding knowledge
In many Pacific societies, knowing about the ocean is more than just fishing and harvesting. It also includes advanced skills in finding your way by using the stars, swell patterns, birds, and other seasonal signs, passing on marine knowledge orally, and understanding the sea's relational cosmology. These ways of doing things stress the importance of knowledge networks linking islands, adaptable observation of ocean and weather changes, and a movement and connection ethic.
Indigenous and ecological epistemologies of the sea
In Pacific Islands traditions, the ocean is not just a resource to be used, but also a living thing that people interact with in a two-way relationship. People know about iconic species, traditional harvest times, and stories told by elders about extreme past events. These things connect culture, ecology, and governance. This way of thinking about knowledge offers ways to run things that are based on respect, remembering the past, and being accountable to others.
Why might these traditions be important for running the high seas?
Changing the way we think: from exploiting to managing
Freedom of navigation, resource extraction, quota allocation (for fish or minerals, for example), and state-based sovereignty are the main principles governing the high seas today. Pacific Island customs, on the other hand, focus on relationships (between people, the ocean, other species, and future generations) and duties (such as guardianship and caring for each other) rather than just rights. This change could help move high seas policy towards a model of care: the question is no longer "who gets to fish or mine?" but "who is responsible for keeping the ocean healthy for future generations?"
Community-based and distributed governance
In the Pacific, marine traditional systems are not always one big thing. Instead, they are often local and flexible. The high seas are vast, but the model of nested governance, which includes smaller or local governments within larger systems, can be used to plan how to govern them at multiple levels. These types of forms can enhance ecological authority, legitimacy, and adaptability.
Integrating knowledge and making climate and ecosystems more resilient
Traditional knowledge about the ocean offers memories of long-term ecological events, seasonal currents, wind changes, species movements, temperature changes, and storms. It also lets us see how the marine environment is changing in fine detail inside each season. In the high seas, where data isn't always consistent and rules aren't always followed, this kind of information can fill in the blanks, send early warning signals, and make governance more flexible and quicker to act.
Truth, fairness, and legitimacy
Pacific Islander cultural traditions also address issues of marine justice. Small island states often have to deal with the effects of climate change, rising sea levels, and the high seas more than they should, yet they have little say in how areas beyond their jurisdictions are governed. Recognising traditional maritime traditions in high seas governance frameworks can help address the imbalance, give local views greater weight, and ensure decisions remain fair.
The problems of bringing these concepts into the management of ABNJ
Scale and a lack of authority
Pacific customary systems primarily operate at the local or national level. Trying to apply them to the high seas, which are generally controlled by the most powerful countries and are often shaped by global geopolitics and dynamics, is almost impossible, given how these frameworks are built. RFMOs may not be able to work efficiently with community-based or customary systems when regulating the high seas.
Integration of knowledge and institutions
When traditional knowledge is used in global governance systems, it raises issues of translation, validation, rights, intellectual property, and epistemic respect. Reforming institutions, building people's skills, and changing how information is organised are all needed to make integration meaningful.
Power relations and the effects of colonisation
There have been colonial, post-colonial, and neocolonial forms of government in many Pacific countries. These pasts have an impact on customary governance systems, passing down information from one generation to the next, and legal recognition. Some traditional practices may no longer be as prevalent or may have changed. Reforms to governance must take these memories into account and ensure that local agency is at the centre, not just a token.
Enforcement, monitoring and resources
One practical problem with high seas management is that monitoring vast areas of the ocean is both complicated and expensive. Customary marine tenure works in part because of the social tracking and enforcement systems in place in the area. To make this work on the high seas, new enforcement networks, surveillance, community-based remote sensing, and partnerships would be needed.
Ideas on How to Use Pacific Traditional Knowledge in High Seas Governance
Set up area government systems that are based on community involvement
Create "ocean stewardship" zones in the Pacific Ocean that are outside of national jurisdiction and are governed by Pacific Island states and their people. These zones should be based on traditional marine tenure systems. I personally think that the High Seas pockets in the FFA membership would be a good test for this.
Adaptive governance and ecological‑temporal systems
Borrowing from Pacific traditions of cyclical closures, rotational harvests, ecological observation and adaptive protocols, global governance can move toward adaptive zoning, dynamic closures, and monitoring‑triggered responses rather than static protected areas.
Relational design and ethical ocean control
Incorporate an ocean guardianship ethic into organisations and treaties. Instead of seeing the high seas as a resource frontier, see it as a heritage for future generations and a place to steward relationships.
Anyway… this is just a theoretical exercise. I’m very aware that it is my interpretation of Pacific island practices, which, as I’m not a Pacific islander, could easily be wrong, and my apologies if that is the case…
Here are the references I used for this rambling
Proulx, M., Ross, L., Macdonald, C., & Fitzsimmons, S. (2021). Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Ocean Observing: A Review of Successful Partnerships. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8.
UNESCO. Indigenous knowledge in the Pacific Islands and the UN Ocean Decade.
Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science (PCCOS). Traditional ocean knowledge and practices.
Le Meur, P.-Y., & Muni Toke, V. (2025). Competing Knowledges and Sovereignties in the French Pacific Oceanscapes. Ocean and Society, 2.