EU-MERCES webinar - Ecosystem Restoration in Deep Waters

This webinar and will focus on two important topics:

1. Environmental impacts of decommissioning obsolete oil and gas platforms from our oceans

Speaker: Anne-Mette M. Jørgensen

The removal of thousands of obsolete oil and gas platforms from our oceans has already begun, yet the environmental impacts of this decommissioning policy are largely unknown. In recent years a growing number of scientists are pleading for more serious consideration of alternative decommissioning options such as partial removal and reefing. Such options could simultaneously reduce negative environmental impacts and decommissioning costs.

Anne-Mette M. Jørgensen is an independent consultant with more than 20 years of experience in managing high-impact, multi-stakeholder projects relating to sustainability. Since 2010, she has focused her work on the relationship between (decommissioning of) offshore structures and marine ecosystems. She led the Living North Sea Initiative (LiNSI) and founded North Sea Futures.

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2. Impact of mining activities

Speaker: Daphne Cuvelier

While little is still known about the impacts of actual mining activities, it is clear that they will affect all deep-sea communities. Effective environmental management plans, including mitigation actions to potentially minimise impacts and avoid exceeding tipping points as well as restoration actions to aid in the ecosystem’s recovery, are needed. In this talk, mitigation and restoration actions that could play a role in preserving both biodiversity and functioning ecosystems are discussed.

Daphne Cuvelier is a postdoctoral researcher at the MARE-Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre/IMAR – Instituto do Mar, based in Horta, Azores. She studies the temporal variation of deep-sea communities in disturbed and undisturbed environments, mostly based on imagery analysis, hence acquiring knowledge of communities’ natural variation, resilience and (non)recovery.