Current Legal Developments: International Union for The Conservation of Nature

The Workshop on High Seas Governance for the 21st Century was held in New York City on 17-19 October 2007. Over 50 leading experts in international marine policy, science, law and economics gathered to explore policy and regulatory options to improve oceans governance beyond areas of national jurisdiction (BANJ), particularly as they relate to the protection and preservation of the marine environment and marine biological diversity. Participants attended in their personal capacity and the Workshop was conducted under Chatham House Rules. Co-chairs of the Workshop were David Freestone, Kristina Gjerde, Rosemary Rayfuse and David VanderZwaag

Digital phenotyping of individual feed intake in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) with the X-ray method and image analysis

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Existing environmental management approaches relevant to deep-sea mining

Deep-sea mining (DSM) may become a significant stressor on the marine environment. The DSM industry should demonstrate transparently its commitment to preventing serious harm to the environment by complying with legal requirements, using environmental good practice, and minimizing environmental impacts. Here existing environmental management approaches relevant to DSM that can be used to improve performance are identified and detailed. DSM is still predominantly in the planning stage and will face some unique challenges but there is considerable environmental management experience in existing related industries. International good practice has been suggested for DSM by bodies such as the Pacific Community and the International Marine Minerals Society. The inherent uncertainty in DSM presents challenges, but it can be addressed by collection of environmental information, area-based/spatial management, the precautionary approach and adaptive management. Tools exist for regional and strategic management, which have already begun to be introduced by the International Seabed Authority, for example in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Project specific environmental management, through environmental impact assessment, baseline assessment, monitoring, mitigation and environmental management planning, will be critical to identify and reduce potential impacts. In addition, extractive companies’ internal management may be optimised to improve performance by emphasising sustainability at a high level in the company, improving transparency and reporting and introducing environmental management systems. The DSM industry and its regulators have the potential to select and optimize recognised and documented effective practices and adapt them, greatly improving the environmental performance of this new industry

Opinion: Midwater Ecosystems Must Be Considered When Evaluating Environmental Risks of Deep-Sea Mining

Despite rapidly growing interest in deep-sea mineral exploitation, environmental research and management have focused on impacts to seafloor environments, paying little attention to pelagic ecosystems. Nonetheless, research indicates that seafloor mining will generate sediment plumes and noise at the seabed and in the water column that may have extensive ecological effects in deep midwaters (1), which can extend from an approximate depth of 200 meters to 5 kilometers. Deep midwater ecosystems represent more than 90% of the biosphere (2), contain fish biomass 100 times greater than the global annual fish catch (3), connect shallow and deep-sea ecosystems, and play key roles in carbon export (4), nutrient regeneration, and provisioning of harvestable fish stocks (5). These ecosystem services, as well as biodiversity, could be negatively affected by mining. Here we argue that deep-sea mining poses significant risks to midwater ecosystems and suggest how these risks could be evaluated more comprehensively to enable environmental resource managers and society at large to decide whether and how deep-sea mining should proceed

A strategy for the conservation of biodiversity on mid-ocean ridges from deep-sea mining

Mineral exploitation has spread from land to shallow coastal waters and is now planned for the offshore, deep seabed. Large seafloor areas are being approved for exploration for seafloor mineral deposits, creating an urgent need for regional environmental management plans. Networks of areas where mining and mining impacts are prohibited are key elements of these plans. We adapt marine reserve design principles to the distinctive biophysical environment of mid-ocean ridges, offer a framework for design and evaluation of these networks to support conservation of benthic ecosystems on mid-ocean ridges, and introduce projected climate-induced changes in the deep sea to the evaluation of reserve design. We enumerate a suite of metrics to measure network performance against conservation targets and network design criteria promulgated by the Convention on Biological Diversity. We apply these metrics to network scenarios on the northern and equatorial Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where contractors are exploring for seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) deposits. A latitudinally distributed network of areas performs well at (i) capturing ecologically important areas and 30 to 50% of the spreading ridge areas, (ii) replicating representative areas, (iii) maintaining along-ridge population connectivity, and (iv) protecting areas potentially less affected by climate-related changes. Critically, the network design is adaptive, allowing for refinement based on new knowledge and the location of mining sites, provided that design principles and conservation targets are maintained. This framework can be applied along the global mid-ocean ridge system as a precautionary measure to protect biodiversity and ecosystem function from impacts of SMS mining

Report of the Workshop Evaluating the Nature of Midwater Mining Plumes and Their Potential Effects on Midwater Ecosystems

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is developing regulations to control the future exploitation of deep-sea mineral resources including sulphide deposits near hydrothermal vents, polymetallic nodules on the abyssal seafloor, and cobalt crusts on seamounts. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea the ISA is required to adopt are taking measures to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects arising from mining-related activities. Contractors are required to generate environmental baselines and assess the potential environmental consequences of deep seafloor mining. Understandably, nearly all environmental research has focused on the seafloor where the most direct mining effects will occur. However, sediment plumes and other impacts (e.g., noise) from seafloor mining are likely to be extensive in the water column. Sediment plumes created on the seafloor will affect the benthic boundary layer which extends 10s to 100s of meters above the seafloor. Separation or dewatering of ore from sediment and seawater aboard ships will require discharge of a dewatering plume at some depth in the water column. It is important to consider the potential impacts of mining on the ocean’s midwaters (depths from ~200 m to the seafloor) because they provide vital ecosystem services and harbor substantial biodiversity. The better known epipelagic or sunlit surface ocean provisions the rest of the water column through primary production and export flux (This was not the focus at this workshop as the subject was considered too large and surface discharges are unlikely). It is also home to a diverse community of organisms including commercially important fishes such as tunas, billfish, and cephalopods that contribute to the economies of many countries. The mesopelagic or twilight zone (200-1000 m) is dimly lit and home to very diverse and abundant communities of organisms. Mesopelagic plankton and small nekton form the forage base for many deep-diving marine mammals and commercially harvested epipelagic species. Furthermore, detritus from the epipelagic zone falls through the mesopelagic where it is either recycled, providing the vital process of nutrient regeneration, or sinks to greater depths sequestering carbon from short-term atmospheric cycles. The waters below the mesopelagic down to the seafloor (both the bathypelagic and abyssopelagic) are very poorly characterized but are likely large reservoirs of novel biodiversity and link the surface and benthic ecosystems. Great strides have been made in understanding the biodiversity and ecosystem function of the ocean’s midwaters, but large regions, including those containing many exploration license areas and the greater depths where mining plumes will occur, remain very poorly studied. It is clear that pelagic communities are distinct from those on the seafloor and in the benthic boundary layer. They are often sampled with different instrumentation. The fauna have relatively large biogeographic ranges and they are more apt to mix freely across stakeholder boundaries, reference areas and other spatial management zones. Pelagic organisms live in a three-dimensional habitat and their food webs and populations are vertically connected by daily or lifetime migrations and the sinking flux of detritus from the epipelagic. The fauna do not normally encounter hard surfaces, making them fragile, and difficult to capture and maintain for sensitivity or toxicity studies. Despite some existing general knowledge, ecological baselines for midwater communities and ecosystems that likely will be impacted by mining have not been documented. There is an urgent need to conduct more research and evaluate the midwater biota (microbes to fishes) in regions where mining is likely to occur. Deep-sea mining activities may affect midwater organisms in a number of ways, but it is still unclear at what scale perturbations may occur. The sediment plumes both from collectors on the seafloor and from midwater discharge will have a host of negative consequences. They may cause respiratory distress from clogged gills or respiratory surfaces. Suspension feeders, such as copepods, polychaetes, salps, and appendicularians, that filter small particles from the water and form an important basal group of the food web, may suffer from dilution of their food by inorganic sediments and/or clogging of their fragile mucous filter nets. Small particles may settle on gelatinous plankton causing buoyancy issues. Metals, including toxic elements that will enter the food web, will be released from pore waters and crushed ore materials. Sediment plumes will also absorb light and change backscatter properties, reducing visual communication and bioluminescent signaling that are very important for prey capture and reproduction in midwater animals. Noise from mining activities may alter the behaviors of marine mammals and other animals. Small particles have high surface area to volume ratios, high pelagic persistence and dispersal and as a result greater potential to result in pelagic impacts. All of these potential effects will result in mortality, migration (both horizontal and vertical), decreased fitness, and shifts in community composition. Depending on the scale and duration of these effects, there could be reduction in provisioning to commercial fish species, delivery of toxic metals to pelagic food webs and hence human seafood supply, and alterations to carbon transport and nutrient regeneration services. After four days of presentations and discussions, the workshop participants came to several conclusions and synthesized recommendations. 1. Assuming no discharge in the epipelagic zone, it is essential to minimize mining effects in the mesopelagic zone because of links to our human seafood supply as well as other ecosystem services provided by the mesopelagic fauna. This minimization could be accomplished by delivering dewatering discharge well below the mesopelagic/bathypelagic transition (below ~1000 m depth). 2. Research should be promoted by the ISA and other bodies to study the bathypelagic and abyssopelagic zones (from ~1000 m depths to just above the seafloor). It is likely that both collector plumes and dewatering plumes will be created in the bathypelagic, yet this zone is extremely understudied and contains major unknowns for evaluating mining impacts. 3. Management objectives, regulations and management actions need to prevent the creation of a persistent regional scale “haze” (enhanced suspended particle concentrations) in pelagic midwaters. Such a haze would very likely cause chronic harm to deep midwater ecosystem biodiversity, structure and function. 4. Effort is needed to craft suitable standards, thresholds, and indicators of harmful environmental effects that are appropriate to pelagic ecosystems. In particular, suspension feeders are very important ecologically and are likely to be very sensitive to sediment plumes. They are a high priority for study. 5. Particularly noisy mining activities such as ore grinding at seamounts and hydrothermal vents is of concern to deep diving marine mammals and other species. One way to minimize sound impacts would be to minimize activities in the sound-fixing-and-ranging (SOFAR) channel (typically at depths of ~1000 m) which transmits sounds over very long distances. 6. A Lagrangian (drifting) perspective is needed in monitoring and management because the pelagic ecosystem is not a fixed habitat and mining effects are likely to cross spatial management boundaries. For example, potential broad-scale impacts to pelagic ecosystems should be considered in the deliberations over preservation reference zones, the choice of stations for environmental baseline and monitoring studies and other area-based management and conservation measures. 7. Much more modeling and empirical study of realistic mining sediment plumes is needed. Plume models will help evaluate the spatial and temporal extent of pelagic (as well as benthic) ecosystem effects and help to assess risks from different technologies and mining scenarios. Plume modeling should include realistic mining scenarios (including duration) and assess the spatial-temporal scales over which particle concentrations exceed baseline levels and interfere with light transmission to elucidate potential stresses on communities and ecosystem services. Models should include both near and far field-phases, incorporating realistic near field parameters of plume generation, flocculation, particle sinking, and other processes. It is important to note that some inputs to these models such as physical oceanographic parameters are lacking and should be acquired in the near-term. Plume models need to be complemented by studies to understand effects on biological components by certain particle sizes and concentrations

Deep-Sea Mining With No Net Loss of Biodiversity—An Impossible Aim

Deep-sea mining is likely to result in biodiversity loss, and the significance of this to ecosystem function is not known. “Out of kind” biodiversity offsets substituting one ecosystem type (e.g., coral reefs) for another (e.g., abyssal nodule fields) have been proposed to compensate for such loss. Here we consider a goal of no net loss (NNL) of biodiversity and explore the challenges of applying this aim to deep seabed mining, based on the associated mitigation hierarchy (avoid, minimize, remediate). We conclude that the industry cannot at present deliver an outcome of NNL. This results from the vulnerable nature of deep-sea environments to mining impacts, currently limited technological capacity to minimize harm, significant gaps in ecological knowledge, and uncertainties of recovery potential of deep-sea ecosystems. Avoidance and minimization of impacts are therefore the only presently viable means of reducing biodiversity losses from seabed mining. Because of these constraints, when and if deep-sea mining proceeds, it must be approached in a precautionary and step-wise manner to integrate new and developing knowledge. Each step should be subject to explicit environmental management goals, monitoring protocols, and binding standards to avoid serious environmental harm and minimize loss of biodiversity. “Out of kind” measures, an option for compensation currently proposed, cannot replicate biodiversity and ecosystem services lost through mining of the deep seabed and thus cannot be considered true offsets. The ecosystem functions provided by deep-sea biodiversity contribute to a wide range of provisioning services (e.g., the exploitation of fish, energy, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics), play an essential role in regulatory services (e.g., carbon sequestration) and are important culturally. The level of “acceptable” biodiversity loss in the deep sea requires public, transparent, and well-informed consideration, as well as wide agreement. If accepted, further agreement on how to assess residual losses remaining after the robust implementation of the mitigation hierarchy is also imperative. To ameliorate some of the inter-generational inequity caused by mining-associated biodiversity losses, and only after all NNL measures have been used to the fullest extent, potential compensatory actions would need to be focused on measures to improve the knowledge and protection of the deep sea and to demonstrate benefits that will endure for future generations