The past month has been anything but quiet over at Nautilus Minerals. Changes in leadership, transparent financial stress and mobilized on-the-ground opposition have clashed with marked advances in technology and production timelines on the controversial Solwara One deep sea mining project in Papua New Guinea. A positive 2017 second quarter left shareholders happy and Nautilus […]
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The final report of the workshop From Paper to Practice: Implementing the Mining Code was released this past week. The workshop took place on 12 August 2017 in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, offering participants of the 23rd Annual Session of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) a relaxed, off the record forum to exchange ideas the development […]
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The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is charged with regulating deep-sea mining in the Area and its environmental impacts. To evaluate these impacts, the ISA’s rules call for contractors to delineate and monitor Impact Reference Zones (IRZs) and Preservation Reference Zones (PRZs). In general, an IRZ represents the area impacted by mining operations. A PRZ, in […]
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International Seabed Authority (ISA) Contractors have a legal obligation to provide and fund training opportunities for young men and women Developing States. The following new candidates have been accepted for training placements since July: China (announced 1 August 2017) The China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association (COMRA) offered three training positions: Md. Bazlar […]
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As the ocean becomes increasingly industrialized, governments are starting to rely on a strategy long deployed with mixed results to mitigate the destruction of habitats on land: offsets. The idea is make up for the loss of biodiversity from development by creating or rehabilitating habitat elsewhere. Now researchers have called into question the efficacy of […]
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The 23rd Annual Session of the International Seabed Authority – and the first Annual Session under new Secretary General Michael Lodge – convened 31 July 2017 at the ISA headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica. By the time of the final gavel on 18 August, the ISA had made a series of decisions with major implications both […]
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The Japan Agency for Marine‐Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) is field-testing a new monitoring system for long-term environmental data collection on the deep seafloor. The Edokko Mark I is a simple deep sea shuttle camera which descends from a surface vessel to the seafloor using its own weight, captures images and floats back to the […]
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A June 2017 report from the World Bank highlights the role that minerals and metals will play in a low-carbon future. The report “The Growing Role of Minerals and Metals for a Low-Carbon Future” asserts that the rise of green energy technologies is expected to lead to growth in demand for minerals and metals such […]
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On Friday, July 21st, a U.N Preparatory Committee on high seas biodiversity agreed on a recommendation to the U.N. General Assembly to advance an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) to negotiate a potential Open Ocean Treaty for the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems beyond national jurisdiction. Unlike the seabed beyond national jurisdiction, which has had a legal […]
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A new paper published by scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) is challenging scientific assumptions on the way deep sea vents are colonized. The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, describes two geographically close hydrothermal vent fields that support very different animal communities. Both vents were discovered in […]
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