The Sargasso Sea Commission is celebrating the tenth anniversary of an ocean conservation agreement by making a commemorative video.

The commission joined forces with the Government on the film celebrating the Hamilton Declaration on Collaboration for the Conservation of the Sargasso Sea. A series of technical meetings will be held in Bermuda.

Walter Roban, the Deputy Premier and Minister of Home Affairs, also recorded a video statement for the meetings.

“The Sargasso Sea is vitally important for Bermuda and globally recognised for the ecosystem services it provides,” Mr Roban said.

“It is a developmental habitat for many species of pelagic fish and sea turtles, and a migratory corridor for whales, dolphins, sharks and rays.

“It also upholds climate resilience by acting as a significant carbon sink.

“The Government of Bermuda is honoured to be a part of this global effort to conserve our precious oceans.”

Representatives of the governments that have signed the Hamilton Declaration and the Sargasso Sea commissioners gathered to celebrate at Cambridge Beaches this week — ten years after the initial signing.

They attended a series of meetings over two days to co-ordinate the implementation of two projects of the Sargasso Sea Commission that will update the science case for the Sargasso Sea ecosystem and create a stakeholder-endorsed plan for its conservation.

The Hamilton Declaration is a non-binding statement focusing on voluntary collaboration for the conservation of the Sargasso Sea between governments, scientists, intergovernmental organisations and other bodies.

The establishment and the work of the commission have been described as “a new paradigm for high seas ocean conservation”.

Bermuda is the only landmass in the Sargasso Sea, and the Government has promoted its conservation.

After more than two years of negotiations, the Hamilton Declaration was signed on March 11, 2014, at a meeting hosted by the Government. Bermuda was one of the original five signatories along with the Azores, Monaco, Britain and the United States. They were later joined by the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Canada, the Cayman Islands and the Dominican Republic.

The high seas, which suffer from the “tragedy of the commons,” are governed by regional and sectoral organisations, making it challenging to govern comprehensively. The Sargasso Sea Commission offers a structure to achieve voluntary collaboration for conservation in the region.

The work of the Sargasso Sea Commission informs and reacts to the development of the new United Nations Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement.

The agreement text was finalised last March. It would allow internationally legally binding marine-protected areas to be established on the high seas for the first time.

The treaty has been signed by 88 countries, but only Palau and Chile have ratified it. The treaty requires 60 ratifications to enter into force.

“I am delighted to return to Bermuda to celebrate a decade of achievements for the Sargasso Sea Commission,” said David Freestone, its executive secretary.

“With the leadership of the Government of Bermuda, we have come a long way since 2014. We are now widely regarded as a flagship initiative for the implementation of the new BBNJ Agreement.”

In the decade since its inception, the Sargasso Sea Commission has successfully advocated for the description of the Sargasso Sea by the Convention on Biological Diversity as an Ecologically or Biologically Significant Area, facilitated collaboration with the range states of the European and American anguillid eel, and brought about the closure of seamounts in the Sargasso Sea to bottom trawling through the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation in 2016.

With major grants from the Global Environment Facility and the French Facility for Global Environment, the Sargasso Sea Commission aims to develop a comprehensive assessment of this iconic ecosystem, and create a strategic action programme for its conservation, with the support and endorsement of stakeholders.