MAPS: A GLOBAL PEACE SANCTUARY
During a hot summer that felt as though the Earth itself was feverish, a Canadian singer named Parvati had a recurring dream in which she lay on a frozen ocean, while a great blue whale awaited her below. Though she was planning a musical tour of Asia, the dream was too vivid to ignore. Trusting the inner call, she canceled her tour and traveled to the North Pole where she performed to raise awareness of the melting polar ice. Having met in the Arctic with city councils, schools, hunters, scientists and elders, Parvati returned with the unanimous message from the Inuit people: “The ice is melting. The animals are dying. People are suffering. Tell the South to stop polluting.” Gravely concerned at the threat to the ecosystem and the world, Parvati rallied friends, who are experts in their fields, and formed Parvati.org with the vision of a marine protected area called MAPS: the Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary.
MAPS REALIZATION OVERVIEW
Though nature’s voice may be hard to hear over the din of our agitated lifestyles, people everywhere are beginning to sense that something is terribly wrong with our common home. We can all feel the distress of our planet and of our life-giving oceans. Yet the rapidly melting polar ice, though it poses a tremendous threat to all life on Earth, is greatly ignored. The planet is heating up. Every year, record high temperatures are set, then broken. Rising sea levels are beginning to swallow shorelines around the world. Weather has become more and more erratic, bringing floods, droughts, hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities to an extent never before known. We are facing a humanitarian and ecological crisis.
Core to this issue is the reality that the linchpin of the planet’s ecological balance, the polar ice, is breaking, and is further threatened by exploitation on multiple fronts. We must take immediate action to protect it while we still can.
MAPS will be realized by a unifying international agreement, administered by the United Nations, called the MAPS Treaty. Encompassing the entire Arctic Ocean north of the Arctic Circle, MAPS is the world’s largest marine protected area, and enters into force when 99 countries, including the Arctic nations, sign the MAPS Treaty.
MAPS: THE TREATY
To realize the Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary, Parvati.org created the MAPS Treaty, an addendum to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and provided it to the heads of government of all 193 UN member states.
MAPS ALLOWS ● Scientific investigation ● Local subsistence fishing ● Observation and inspection
MAPS STOPS ● Natural resource exploitation ● Seismic testing ● Commercial fishing ● Through shipping traffic ● Military activity ● Dumping
For more information on MAPS, please visit www.Parvati.org.
