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Interest has been growing over the last 10-15 years in exploitation of mineral resources in the deep sea. These are extensive or highly concentrated deposits typically found offshore at depths over 200m.

Conservation is a positive endeavour including “… the preservation, maintenance, sustainable use, restoration, and enhancement of the natural environment”. (1) Protected area is “...a clearly defi ned geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values”. (6) This IUCN defi nition applies equally to land, inland waters and coastal and marine territories and areas and is widely considered to be equivalent to the CBD defi nition.

Brochure on building partnerships for EU overseas to meet biodiversity and climate change challenges

Opportunities to mitigate climate change by reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), especially in developing countries, have risen to the top of the international climate policy agenda, attracting increasing attention and investment from environmental organizations, development assistance agencies and the business community. Deforestation is one of the largest sources of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and produces about 17 percent of total emissions (IPCC, 2007). There is growing consensus that REDD may offer a large pool of relatively low-cost emission reductions, which could significantly reduce the costs of meeting GHG reduction targets (see Beinhocker et al., 2008; Stern, 2006; Grieg-Gran, 2008). However, proponents of REDD are still striving to win political endorsement for the approach as a compliance mechanism. The potential of REDD and other land-based carbon storage and sequestration opportunities as part of a post-2012 climate change regime remains uncertain, in part due to lack of detailed information on the likely costs associated with forest carbon projects, and REDD programmes in particular.