With the depletion of the cod fishery and so many other coastal fish stocks worldwide, the fishing industry has turned to the high seas to exploit their resources. Fishing operations are now (1)_____ the seamounts, oceanic ridges and plateaus of the deep ocean (2)_____ national jurisdiction, where owner ship and responsibility do not (3)_____ to any nation. (4)_____ a decade or more, we have caused significant damage to (5)_____ unknown ecosystems, depleted species and probably doomed many others to (6)_____.Every day, commercial fishing fleets (7)_____ primarily from just 11 nations venture (8)_____ the high seas to fish the deep ocean. What's left is truly a lonely, infertile, undersea desert. The high seas are very special. It is here where you can find (9)_____ groupings of animals that (10)_____ their energy from sources (11)_____ the sun around volcanoes on the deep sea floor. It is only here where you can find areas still free from introduced species, (12)_____ in the seas around Antarctica. And it is here where you can find (13)_____ organisms that are more than 8,000 years old, like many of the massive deep-sea corms. But what really sets the high seas (14)_____ from all other areas we know is the (15)_____ lack of protection for any of this natural heritage. A United Nations meeting recently finally pay great attention to the high seas and put them on the (16)_____.Government officials from around the world gathered together with scientists, representatives from the fishing (17)_____, conservation groups and other stake-holders to discuss conservation and (18)_____ use of marine biological diversity in the high seas, (19)_____ 64 percent of the Earth's surface. They need to move quickly. (20)_____ the fragility of these environments, we simply do hot have the luxury of time, but we can act before it is too late.