New publication on Area-based management tools for deep-sea ecosystems
Catherine Blanchard (Utrecht 木瓜福利影视) has published a paper in Frontiers in Political Sciences. The paper, co-authored with Sabine Gollner (Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ)) is entitled 鈥淎rea-based management tools to protect unique hydrothermal vents from harmful effects from deep-sea mining: A review of ongoing developments鈥.
In the paper, the authors review the current regulatory and policy framework for deep-sea spatial management, and set it into the environmental context. They conclude that all current management measures of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the international organization mandated with the control and regulation of mineral related activities conducted on the deep seabed, would not be suited to protect the marine environment from harmful mining impact. The authors recognize that ISA's area-based management tools are under development, and suggest that improvements can be achieved by studying and recognizing the ecological attributes of ecosystems and their connectivity, as well as governance connectivity, taking into account area-based management tools of different users in the same area.
Protecting deep seabed hydrothermal vent fields
This paper is an output of the UU-NIOZ project , which brings together international law and marine sciences to assess the effectiveness of area-based management tools to protect deep-sea ecosystems.