Happy 2018 and welcome to our new year’s edition of the DSM Observer. As our readers return from holiday breaks and family gatherings, we embark together on what is shaping up to potentially be one of the most pivotal years yet for deep sea mining. 2017 laid the framework for much of what lies ahead […]
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MIKE GAWORECKI on MONGABAY | 26 December 2017 The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on Sunday to convene negotiations for an international treaty to protect the marine environments of the high seas. Vast areas of ocean that lie outside any country’s exclusive economic zone — or, in other words, more than […]
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Since August 2012, Paul Lynch has led the Cook Islands’ Seabed Minerals Authority, which oversees development of the islands’ national seabed mineral resource. A lawyer with over 25 years of wide and varied legal experience in the private sector, Commissioner Lynch is shaping deep sea mining as an industry, both in the Cook Islands and […]
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During October-November 2017, Secretary-General Michael Lodge and his staff at the ISA Secretariat have been busy advancing and promoting the work of the ISA. Noteworthy milestones include: 15 October 2017. An ISA delegation led by Secretary-General Lodge visited Poland for a series of official meetings and discussions with the Polish Minister of Environment Mariusz Orion […]
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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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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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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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Last July, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) met for its 22nd Session in Kingston, Jamaica and elected Michael W. Lodge of the United Kingdom as the new Secretary General of the Authority. Secretary-General Lodge began work on his 4-year term on 1 January 2017 and succeeds Mr. Nii Allotey Odunton of Ghana, who had been […]
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