Source: Scoop Independent News
Mining phosphate on the Chatham Rise, on New Zealand’s continental shelf, could potentially have many impacts on marine mammals like whales and dolphins, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) was told today.
Continue reading Chatham Rise mining could have impacts on whales, dolphins, EPA told
Source: Environment 360
Author: Mike Ives
For years, the idea of prospecting for potentially rich deposits of minerals on the ocean floor was little more than a pipe dream. Extractive equipment was not sophisticated or cost-effective enough for harsh environments thousands of feet beneath the ocean’s surface, and mining companies were busy exploring mineral deposits on land.
Continue reading Drive to Mine the Deep Sea Raises Concerns Over Impacts
Protagonizan la nueva campaña para prohibir la pesca de arrastre de fondo en aguas profundas, uno de los ecosistemas más grandes y frágiles del océano.
Source: Nature
Carbonate rocks near methane seeps in the sea floor are home to thriving ecosystems of microbes that consume that greenhouse gas, suggests research published in Nature Communications1.
Continue reading Sea floors host surprise methane-munching microbes
Published as part of its Technical Series (no 75) by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the report draws on modelling, laboratory and field studies by the £12m UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme www.oceanacidification.org.uk (UKOA), co-funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Continue reading An updated synthesis of the impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity
Wellington — Mining phosphate from the seabed of the Chatham Rise would remove a protected coral species crucial to the local ecosystem, an Environmental Protection Agency hearing into a seabed mining proposal was told this morning.
Continue reading Protected corals could be wiped out by deep sea phosphate mining, hearing told
Vigo, Spain (September 26th, 2014) – The 36th Annual Meeting of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) closed today in Vigo, Spain. The 12 members of NAFO were presented with comprehensive scientific advice regarding the protection of deep sea ecosystems as well as the conservation of fish stocks in the NAFO Convention Area. NAFO agreed to close two new areas to protect deep-sea ecosystems such as coldwater corals, sponge and seapen ecosystems, but did not adopt the full suite of recommendations to protect sites identified by its scientists as high priorities.
Continue reading New deep-sea protection measures agreed for the Northwest Atlantic
Wellington – The EPA began hearings today in Wellington on Chatham Rock Phosphate’s (CRP) application to mine 5000 square kms of the seabed on the Chatham Rise, in the waters off the New Zealand’s east coast.
Continue reading Chatham Rise Seabed Mining hearing begins: NGOs join forces to oppose
The 36th Annual Meeting of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) convenes this week (September 22-26) in Vigo, Spain. Of primary concern to conservation organizations is the protection of deep sea species from bottom trawling. While some areas of the deep-sea in the Northwest Atlantic have been closed to fishing over the past several years, scientific advice presented this year indicates that there is poor protection in several areas including deep sea corals, sponges and seamounts as well as other fragile sea floor species.
Continue reading Pressure Mounts for Adoption of Further Conservation Measures for NAFO
Source: Halifax Herald
Author: Bruc Erskine
Environmentalists want the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization to do more to protect deep sea species from bottom trawling.
