Home Current Strategy for ‘No-Mining Zones’ in the Deep Sea

Strategy for ‘No-Mining Zones’ in the Deep Sea

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An international team of researchers has developed a comprehensive set of criteria to help the International Seabed Authority (ISA) protect local biodiversity from deep-sea mining activities. These guidelines should help identify areas of particular environmental importance where no mining should occur. The new ecological framework is a set of 18 quantitative metrics to assess whether the number, shapes, sizes and locations of proposed zones will be sufficient to protect threatened habitats and species.