After long years of campaigning for the world to listen to the need for protection, there is at last movement. In the last 18 months, historic agreements have been reached to protect 30 per cent of land and sea, to restore degraded ecosystems and to reduce harmful subsidies, all by 2030. And in June 2023 the world adopted the (as yet unratified) treaty to protect biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, paving the way for high seas marine protected areas. This feels like a time of unprecedented opportunity, a ‘now or never’ moment to halt and reverse the catastrophic loss of nature in the sea.