Call to Action

In this time of converging biodiversity and climate crises, protecting the ocean, our planet’s life support system, is more critical than ever. The DSCC is calling for urgent action to protect the deep sea from destructive fisheries and the emerging industry of deep-sea mining.

DEEP-SEA MINING

Add your support to growing calls for a moratorium here and email your Prime Minister/President urging them to defend the deep.

The DSCC urges:

Governments 

  • We are calling on governments to stand with the science and support a moratorium on deep-sea mining. This includes a moratorium on the adoption of regulations for exploitation and the issuing of exploitation and new exploration contracts, unless and until the conditions laid out in our position statement are met.  

 Industry and the financial sector

  • We are calling on industry not to use deep-sea metals and minerals in their products.
  • We are calling on the financial sector to pledge to not invest in deep-sea mining and  metals. 
  • Instead, we are urging commitment and investment in identifying alternative approaches to providing for society’s needs, in particular in transitioning to a decarbonized future, focused on innovations in improved resource efficiency, the development and use of materials and technologies with low environmental impact, and sustainable consumption and production.

DEEP-SEA FISHERIES

Take action today and support a ban on bottom trawling on seamounts by the New Zealand fishing industry – sign the petition here.

The DSCC urges:

The UN General Assembly (UNGA)

  • Call for an end bottom trawling on seamounts and other deep-sea biodiversity hotspots on the high seas and a precautionary management regime for the use of other fishing gears.
  • Call for a halt to all fishing for deep-sea species where the impacts are unknown, in particular on long-lived species targeted by the fisheries. 
  • Call for a halt to the catch and bycatch of all deep-sea species, such as deep-sea sharks, recognized as threatened or endangered.
  • Regularly review the performance of individual States and regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) in the implementation of UN resolutions.
  • Improve the next UNGA review to ensure greater global accountability of States and RFMOs that permit deep-sea fisheries on high seas, humankind’s global commons.

High seas fishing nations and regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs)

  • Implement the above set of actions and the other provisions of the UNGA resolutions adopted over the past 15 years to effectively conserve and protect vulnerable species, ecosystems and biodiversity from the harmful impacts of deep-sea fisheries. 

We also call for more effective implementation of the European Union deep-sea fisheries regulation adopted in 2016 and urge all countries to protect deep-sea ecosystems from the harmful impact of bottom fishing within their national waters. 

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