SEMPIA workshop takes place in the Azores

A scoping workshop to consider issues relevant to an Atlantic Strategic Environmental Management Plan took place in Horta, Azores, Portugal from 1-3 June 2015. The workshop was attended by 39 participants from 11 nations, including 14 participants from MIDAS. The workshop was a response to greatly accelerated interest in deep-sea mining, an emerging activity with potential to have a significant adverse effect on the marine environment.

At a strategic level, the challenge is to plan for environmentally responsible exploitation at the scale of an ocean basin, balancing economic benefits of mineral extraction with conservation of marine ecosystems, whilst taking appropriate account of other maritime activities. As its geographic scope, the workshop focused on the Area in the North and South Atlantic, in particular the Mid Atlantic Ridge (MAR) and the Rio Grande Rise (RGR). A pre-workshop data collation exercise was carried out to support and inform the workshop, collating available information from publications, biogeographic databases, experts, online libraries and habitat suitability models. A report from the workshop plus a pre-workshop data report has been sent to the International Seabed Authority to keep them informed.

Download the SEMPIA workshop summary report (PDF file, 0.4MB)

Download the SEMPIA data report (PDF file, 10MB)