4 Initiatives That Offer Hope for a Healthier Ocean in 2025

The global ocean, which feeds billions of people, supports coastal communities, and regulates the climate, is in alarming decline. Every minute, a garbage truck’s worth of plastic is dumped into our ocean. One-third of the world’s fish stocks are overexploited and under increasing stress from climate change. And humankind still lacks a cohesive approach for protecting the vast expanse of international waters that constitute most of the ocean.

Yet 2025 offers vital opportunities to improve the outlook for marine health—if policymakers around the world act now. Here are four key initiatives that could transform how the global community safeguards the ocean.

First, United Nations member countries have an opportunity to finalize a landmark global treaty on plastic pollution. Plastic has become pervasive in the ocean, harming marine life and presenting a growing health concern for people as well, with microplastics increasingly found in our livers, kidneys, and even brains. The treaty offers an opportunity to create legally binding rules to tackle plastic pollution at every stage, from production to disposal.

Second, only 16 more countries need to ratify the World Trade Organization’s historic 2022 agreement to curb harmful subsidies—which contribute to overfishing and unsustainable fishing—to bring the agreement into force. If they do so in 2025, it will mark the year that governments stop paying fleets to fish beyond sustainable limits. Additional negotiations are also underway to limit subsidies that help create excessive fishing capacity—a change that would protect both marine ecosystems and coastal communities reliant on sustainable fisheries.

Third, 2025 could mark a turning point in the governance of the high seas—the two-thirds of our ocean that lies beyond any one nation’s jurisdiction. Only 39 more countries need to ratify the historic U.N. treaty to protect the high seas to bring this agreement into force. Doing so will enable the creation of protected areas on the high seas, conserving crucial biodiversity hot spots and migratory routes while ensuring additional activities on the ocean are properly managed to protect biodiversity and provide equitable benefit-sharing for all nations.

Fourth, innovative financial mechanisms such as project finance for permanence (PFP) and debt-for-nature conversions offer promising solutions to bridge the persistent gap between how much money is available for conservation financing and how much is needed. PFPs establish comprehensive and long-term agreements involving governments, local communities, and donors, ensuring sustained conservation financing that can weather political fluctuations. Debt conversions can provide attractive financial benefits to countries by refinancing a portion of their debt on improved terms in exchange for tangible commitments to invest in conservation initiatives. This frees up crucial fiscal resources for environmental protection that might otherwise be allocated to debt repayment.

The Great Bear Sea PFP, led by First Nations in Canada, as well as Ecuador’s debt conversion each secured hundreds of millions of dollars to fund long-term ocean conservation and generate conservation-linked economic development opportunities—illustrating the enormous potential for these approaches to benefit local communities while achieving biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development goals.

Next week at the Our Ocean Conference in Busan, Korea, governments have a window to demonstrate leadership and build momentum on plastics, harmful fisheries subsidies, and safeguarding the high seas. The conference also offers an opportunity for world leaders to assess progress and collaborate on conservation finance and the global goal of protecting at least 30% of our oceans by 2030 and sustainably managing the remainder.

The stage is set for 2025 to be a banner year in marine conservation and management. But world leaders must take bold and decisive action to implement past promises and ensure that the ocean can continue to provide for humankind far into the future.

Winnie Roberts directs Pew’s conservation support and conservation science teams, working to secure evidence-based policy outcomes that support healthy and resilient ecosystems