Defra announces UK support for moratorium on deep sea mining

Article summary

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced the UK’s support of a moratorium on granting exploitation licences for deep sea mining projects by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). As such, the UK will not sponsor or issue these licenses until there is sufficient scientific evidence on the impacts of deep sea mining and the ISA develops and adopts environmental regulations, standards and guidelines. Defra also noted a new UK-based environmental science expert network on deep sea mining which will be launched to gather scientific data and fill current evidence gaps on the environmental impact of deep sea mining.