City Desk :
At the 28th Council of the International Seabed Authority being held in Kingston, Jamaica, negotiations resumed on Environmental Impact Assessment.
Bangladesh delegate Rear Admiral (retd) Md. Khurshed Alam, Secretary (Maritime Affairs Unit) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took part in the deliberations and significantly contributed to the negotiations.
The meeting of the Council is taking place from July 10-21, 2023 and the ISA Assembly will meet from July 24-28, 2023, reports UNB.
Delegates deliberated on the meaning of ‘cumulative effects’ within the context of synergetic effects and expressed a preference for differentiating between ‘impacts’ and ‘effects’.
Deliberations also took place on the reference to ‘coastal states’, difference between ‘environmental impact statements’ (EIS) and ‘environmental impact assessments’ (EIA), text of the Regulations on Environmental Impact Assessment Scoping Report, identification of potential cumulative effects and extension of public consultation activities.
Most delegates observed that all EIS should be publicly available, suggesting creating an actual public repository of these documents separate from the official ISA webpage. Discussions also took place on whether the test mining should be done, the sequence of test mining and its timing.
Most delegations noted their preference that this be done during the exploration phase and would like to see defined scales of testing program and the assessments that need to take place.
