“The ocean provides us with 50% of our oxygen, and it feeds billions of people – and it’s dying,” the 85-year-old American icon told AFP in an interview.

She is in New York to deliver a petition with more than 5.5 million signatures to Rena Lee, chair of the high-stakes talks which many hope will finally, after 15 years, result in a treaty aimed at protecting and preserving vast ocean areas.

The petition, which Fonda handed over yesterday evening, calls for a “strong” treaty.

“I have children, I have grandchildren, and I just want to spend every single possible moment that I can as long as I’m still alive, to not allow us to destroy the planet,” Fonda told AFP.

Later at a reception, she said there is a “ray of hope” as the talks begin.

“We’ve never been so close and momentum has never been so high,” she said. “We need a global ocean treaty and we need it now.

“It is at our own peril that we delay any further,” she added, describing the ills plaguing the oceans: from plastic pollution to overfishing, warming, acidification, and oil spills.

“I urge you as a mother, a grandmother and a citizen of this world – set aside the politics, the greed, the special interests and the inertia that tends to drag big bold ideas into the ground.

“Let’s get this done.”