Leaders of 14 maritime nations announced their commitment to achieve 100 percent sustainable ocean management of their national waters by 2025, acting on recommendations of a group of global experts co-chaired by Oregon State University marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco.

Led by the leaders of Norway and Palau, the Ocean Panel also features heads of state and government from Portugal, Ghana, Namibia, Kenya, Chile, Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, Japan, Indonesia, Fiji and Australia. Collectively, those nations represent nearly 40 percent of the world’s coastlines, 30 percent of the exclusive economic zones, 20 percent of the globe’s fisheries and 20 percent of maritime shipping. Together, their national waters cover 30 million square kilometers, a combined area roughly the size of Africa.

The Ocean Panel urges every coastal and ocean nation to commit to sustainably managing all of the sea’s exclusive economic zones by 2030. The results, the panel said, would include producing as much as six times more food from the ocean, generating up to 40 times more renewable energy, lifting millions of people from poverty, and contributing 20% of the global greenhouse gas emission reductions needed by 2050 to stay within the 1.5° C limit called for in the 2016 Paris Agreement.