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Vanuatu joins global challenge to protect ocean ‘twilight zone’ from fishing, deep-sea mining – EnviroNews
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Vanuatu on Thursday, October 23, 2026, joined the Mesopelagic Zone Conservation Challenge, a global commitment led by Ocean Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Marine Conservation Institute to protect the ocean’s “twilight zone,” the band of ocean where sunlight starts to disappear.
The twilight zone comprises 20% of the ocean’s volume but contains as much as 90% of its fish biomass.
The announcement, made at the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP17), comes as delegates undertake the first global review of progress toward the global goal of protecting biodiversity.
“Vanuatu is proud to join the Mesopelagic Zone Conservation Challenge. The twilight zone is bound up with everything we depend on – our tuna fisheries, our food security and the climate stability our islands need to survive. We welcome this initiative and look forward to working with partner nations to advance its objectives,” said Osborne Melenamu, Director of Environmental Protection and Conservation of Vanuatu.
“The twilight zone is home to important sources of food for many of the ocean’s fish and wildlife and is an integral part of the carbon pump,” said Ocean Conservancy’s Vice President of Conservation Chris Dorsett. “We still have an opportunity to protect this critical part of the ocean before growing threats from fishing and deep-sea mining take hold. This challenge gives governments a chance to put science and sound management measures in place to prevent irreparable harm.”
Spanning the area between 200 and 1,000 meters (600 and 3,000 feet) beneath the ocean surface, the twilight zone offers a critical link between surface waters and the abyss and plays a key role in regulating the climate. The animals living in the twilight zone are an essential source of food for a diverse array of whales, dolphins, seabirds, sharks and commercially valuable species like tuna and swordfish.
Launched in June 2026, the Mesopelagic Zone Conservation Challenge calls on countries to support protecting the twilight zone from emerging threats like fishing and deep-sea mining, and to advance scientific understanding of this little-understood ocean layer. The challenge has now won the support of Fiji, Panama and Vanuatu.
Though far below the surface, the twilight zone plays an essential role in regulating the Earth’s atmosphere. Every night, in the largest known migration of animals on the planet, millions of species rise to the surface to feed, collecting carbon that they then carry back to the twilight zone.
This “biological pump” moves an estimated two to six gigatons of carbon a year, which is double the annual emissions of all cars worldwide. About 90% of that carbon remains in the twilight zone. The rest sinks into the deep ocean to be locked away for hundreds or thousands of years, preventing it from re-entering the atmosphere.
But human pressures on this critical region are rising. In August, the ocean’s average surface temperature reached 21.1°C (70°F), the highest ever recorded, and those warming waters are already causing shifts and declines in important fish species in the twilight zone.
Expanding industrial activity here – whether commercial fishing or deep-sea mining – could damage the ocean’s ability to regulate the climate, while triggering declines in commercially important fish stocks.
“The ocean twilight zone sustains marine food webs and helps regulate our climate. Protecting these existing benefits is essential for ocean health and the communities that depend on it,” said Dr. Kristin Kleisner, associate vice president for Oceans Science at Environmental Defense Fund.
“By joining the Mesopelagic Zone Conservation Challenge, countries are committing to advance scientific understanding and put precautionary safeguards in place before potentially harmful activities expand. This is an opportunity to act together now to protect an ecosystem we cannot afford to lose,” Kleisner added.
