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It's been more than a decade in the making: a first ever treaty to protect the world's high seas.
Nearly 70 countries have signed on to the United Nations High Seas Biodiversity Agreement - and Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Australia is one of them.
"It's about safeguarding the blue Pacific, the ocean we share for future generations. We're very proud to be a founding signatory along with our Pacific partners to this - for this treaty. It shows that the multilateral system is still delivering, notwithstanding some of the challenges."
The treaty is meant to delivers stronger protections for the ocean under the framework of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Threats to the ocean environment have increased in recent years as a result of overfishing and rising temperatures.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that 41 per cent of threatened species - such as sharks and whales - are being affected by climate change.
Oceans Director of the Pew Charitable Trust Christabel Mitchell says this treaty will apply to activity in the oceans that lie more than 200 nautical miles outside of national boundaries.
"The high seas comprise nearly two thirds of the global ocean, and only 1 percent of them is currently protected. There are vast areas covering the globe; there's waters beyond each country's national waters. They're home to abundant fisheries, they serve as migratory routes for species like whales and sharks, and they support amazing ecosystems like deep water corals. In fact, there's a whole wealth of marine life that we know very little about in the high seas. The high seas treaty will open up a new way of managing the high seas where nations can work together and look at management as a whole. It will allow for the creation of marine protected areas on the high seas for the first time".
The executive director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Darren Kindleysides, says the potential impact of this agreement goes beyond biodiversity.
"Sometimes, treaties and international law can feel a bit remote to our day to day lives. Australia is an island and more than that many other countries, we have a big coastline. We are surrounded by international waters once you get beyond our national jurisdictions. The things that happen, beyond 200 nautical miles from our coasts, affect our waters and and affect our our nation and our economy. So marine ecotourism sits on the Great Barrier Reef, the huge generator of dollars and jobs. And so when we protect the global oceans, we're protecting our oceans, our ocean wildlife, our ocean way of life, and our ocean economies."
The treaty doesn't automatically come into effect now it's been signed.
Darren Kindleysides says that the agreement will now have to be ratified by at least 60 UN member states.
"The international process is that the wording of a treaty needs to be agreed. That happened in March. Then the treaty needs to be signed - and that's what has started happening today. But for that treaty to come into force, 60 countries need to have ratified the treaty. Now ratification is the process by which a country like Australia takes an international agreement and make sure they can deliver it at the national level."
