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THE IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER

‘Powerful reportage…awash with wonderful obscurities’ The Sunday Times

‘A comprehensive investigation of the staggering damage we have done to the world’s oceans and its life forms’ Observer

‘A vital, fascinating, deeply researched exploration of Earth’s last wilderness… Shocking and starkly ‘illuminating – a must-read’ Gaia Vince

The ocean covers seventy per cent of the surface of our planet, and two thirds of this lie beyond national borders. Owned by all nations and no nation simultaneously, these waters are home to some of the richest and most biodiverse environments on the planet. But they are also home to exploitation on a scale that few of us can imagine.

Here, industry and economic progress rule and lax enforcement and apathy are the status quo. Out of sight and often out of mind, a battle rages to control, profit from, protect, or obliterate the world’s largest, wildest commons. Heffernan sets sail on a journey to uncover the truth behind deeply exploitative fishing practices, investigate the potentially devastating impact of deep-sea mining, and hold to task the Silicon-valley interventionists whose solutions to climate change are often wildly optimistic, radically irresponsible or both.

The result is a forceful and deeply researched manifesto calling for the protection and preservation of this final frontier – the last vestiges of wilderness on Earth.

Publisher Review

Powerful reportage…awash with wonderful obscurities * Sunday Times * In her bold investigative book, Heffernan takes the reader on a journey like no other…a must-read book that will speak to everyone * Nature * A vital, fascinating, deeply researched exploration of Earth’s last wilderness, owned by us all and by no one. This is powerful and urgent reportage that rips the veil of romanticism to reveal a vast world of criminal and dangerous enterprise accelerating beyond our shores, threatening us all. Shocking and starkly illuminating – a must-read. — Gaia Vince With energy equal to her profound subject, Heffernan boards many ships and journeys from the Arctic to the Antarctic to bring us an illuminating portrait of a world we rarely see and barely understand – and of the hidden forces that threaten to wreck it — Robert Kunzig On the surface the seas roll on as always. But below, much is changing. And much more is at stake as humans seek plunder and profit beyond the reach of nations. In The High Seas, Olive Heffernan ably takes us into the history, the present, and the future of this largest and most mysterious realm of the planet. — Carl Safina An urgently needed wake-up call about the threat to some of the planet’s most vital but often overlooked ecosystems: the deep oceans. Profoundly informed, passionately written and thrillingly adventurous, Heffernan’s book is both a masterful study in natural history and a forensic survey of the forces and activities that could cause irreparable harm to these precious resources. — Philip Ball, author of CRITICAL MASS This book is the essential guide to the half of our blue planet we call the high seas, written by someone who has done more than almost anyone on earth in the last few years to understand the problems we face, and the solutions that might be available. — Will McCallum, author & director of Greenpeace UK Heffernan’s reporting reveals our human imprint everywhere in the oceans, from the surface to the seafloor, by deciphering the geopolitics, economics, environmental sciences, and morality behind our use of the high seas — Helen Rozwadowski, author of VAST EXPANSES The best introduction I have ever read to the biological, technical, and institutional issues connected with the High Seas and the exploitation of its resources. A gem of a book! — Daniel Pauly In the vein of Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean and Helen Scales’ The Brilliant Abyss comes Olive Heffernan’s The High Seas: an exploration of the breakneck industrialization occurring in the global ocean today. In clear prose, Heffernan investigates the ongoing experiments to bend the high seas to society’s will as well as the unknown benefits and risks that may result. An important, timely book — Laura Trethewey, author of THE DEEPEST MAP A vital book at a deeply contested moment in history for our oceans and humanity at large. With beautifully rendered portraits and a thoughtful examination of the science, Heffernan has accomplished something extraordinary: bringing sense and rhythm to the contested, perilous, and often chaotic realm of our most remote seas — Karen Pinchin, author of KINGS OF THEIR OWN OCEAN Fast-paced, thoroughly reported and deeply disquieting * Science News *