The ushers in the room went off to collect all the cards just as the delegates were walking in, and while they were being confiscated, I managed to give out some of the remaining cards more personally. In New Zealand, at the negotiations for a new Regional agreement on fishing in the South Pacific, our team gave out roses and cards. The message may have been simple and a bit of a laugh, but we are very serious about the need for all states to act now to protect our oceans. The international waters of the high seas cover 64 percent of our planet, or as Sylvia Earle, scientist in residence at National Geographic says, "the blue heart of the planet".

But there are few rules in place to protect marine life in these areas and as the fishing industry has fished-out coastal waters, they have headed to the deeper waters of the open ocean to find fish, with devastating results. Time is running out if the nations of the world want to protect deep-sea life. Greenpeace with our partners at the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition has been campaigning for a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling because it is recognised by scientists around the world as the most destructive fishing practice to the marine life of the deep-sea. Bottom trawling is an incredibly destructive fishing method. It has been compared to bulldozing a forest to catch a few rabbits, because the huge trawl doors, weights and bobbins on the nets destroy everything in their path. See what a bottom trawl does here.

Here are some facts provided by UNEP (the UN Environment Programme) at the UN meeting in NY on why it is absolutely essential for states to protect deep-sea life now:

• we know more about the surface of the moon than of the bottom of the deep oceans


• with an average depth of almost 4,000 meters, the oceans provide more than 90% of the habitable area for life on Earth


• the mid-ocean ridge forms the longest mountain chain on the planet, spanning 5 oceans and 70,000 kilometres -- and it is all deep below the ocean surface!


• Almost 98% of known marine species live in sea floor environments -- more than in all the other environments on Earth combined


• Estimates of the number of deep-sea species vary widely from 500,000 to 10 million, and the majority have yet to be discovered


• Only 0.0001% of the deep-sea floor has been subject to biological investigations


• a specimen of Orange Roughy, a deep-sea fish that is caught by deep-sea bottom trawlers was recently determined to be 240 years old. This means this fish hatched at around the same time that Napolean Bonaparte was born!!!


• New technologies mean that fishing and deep-sea science can already occur at depths of 2000 meters or more

And just in case you aren't convinced about the value of the deep-sea and all of our oceans to the planet, UNEP says that marine ecosystems account for around 63 percent of the total estimated value of ALL systems on earth! They are the blue heart of our planet and countries have to act now to protect them. If you haven't signed up yet, become an Ocean Defender and join us in defending all ocean life!