Background

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) and its partners launched its new flagship initiative, the Sustainable Seabed Knowledge Initiative (SSKI), at the UN Ocean Conference in June 2022.

SSKI is conceived as a model example of concerted global efforts to advance scientific knowledge on deep-sea ecosystems and biodiversity. SSKI aims to promote global scientific collaboration for generating, standardizing and sharing deep-sea biodiversity data and expertise. Building on ISA DeepData database, the Initiative will support marine environmental management in the Area.

Through SSKI, ISA will further create an interdisciplinary nexus between governments, scientific communities, international organizations to advance the scientific understanding of deep-sea biodiversity and its uptake into various global ocean agendas, including the implementation of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

About the side event

This side event will:

• Introduce and discuss the latest proposed implementation plan of SSKI to the international community.
• Foster partnerships for building institutional capacity in deep-sea science and enabling best practices in marine environmental impact/risk assessment, long-term ocean observing and monitoring and area-based management approaches.
• Promote synergies with relevant international processes, such as the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the ongoing negotiations of an international legally binding instrument under UNCLOS on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, with a view to contributing towards the implementation of the CBD post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, once adopted.

Programme

Moderator: Jose Dallo Moros, Director of the Office of Environmental Management and Mineral Resources, ISA