Recognition of these increasing pressures has already triggered global efforts to conserve and protect marine resources. In 2017, following a preparatory phase of more than ten years, the UN General Assembly decided to launch formal negotiations to create a new international legally binding instrument under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to conserve and sustainably use marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. This process is ongoing and is currently being negotiated through a series of conferences in New York, planned to be completed by 2020.

Area-based management tools are one of the mechanisms suggested to support the sustainable use and conservation of ocean biodiversity. The last few years has seen significant attention given to planning across multiple sectors that can unite a wide range of ocean uses and stakeholder needs. As more interests are considered, ecosystem-based management inevitably becomes more complicated and there has been significant demand for tools and methods that support improved decision making within this planning processes.

We aim to improve biodiversity conservation and the sustainable use of deep-sea living resources by collaborating with partners to apply an ecosystem-based approach in ABNJ.
This has four components:

1. Improving the use of relevant policy and legal frameworks for fisheries and biodiversity conservation
2. Reducing adverse impacts on vulnerable marine ecosystems, and ecologically or biologically significant marine areas.
3. Improving planning and adaptive management for deep sea fisheries
4. Developing and testing a methodology for area-based planning

Through such collaborations, and by growing the ability of different sectors and state to create their own area-based planning in the pilot regions, the project aims to ultimately help reduce cumulative impacts on deep-sea ecosystems.