The cruise survey in the contract area of the Clarion Clipperton Facture Zone under the exploration contract with the International Seabed Authority was implemented in early August 2019 and successfully completed on 27 August 2019.
The survey was conducted with the research vessel, Kilo Moana, of the University of Hawaii with survey equipment such as multiple corer and box corer to study natural environment in the survey area.
A Group Photo upon landing Hawaii
The 2019 ISA Training Programme for the trainees from developing States under the exploration contract with the International Seabed Authority, which started since 21 July 2019, was successfully completed on 28 August 2019.
Trainees were from five different countries, namely Mexico, Argentina, Fiji, Cameroon and Nigeria. The training programme included lectures by experts in deep sea mineral resources, practical training with ocean cores, visit to a smelting plant, at-sea training on the research vessel, Hakurei, offshore of Okinawa, and so on.
The ceremony for completion of the programme was held on 27 August 2019. The trainees reported what they have learned and achieved from the programme, as well as their impression on Japanese culture, and a certificate for completion of the programme was delivered to each trainee. All trainees departed Tokyo for their home on the following day, 28 August 2019.
Lecture provided by Dr. Fukushima of JAMSTEC
Trainees listening to Dr. Usui at Kochi University
At-sea Training: Implementation of the Equipment
At the Certificate Ceremony
Presentation of Achievements and Certificate Ceremony
A call for submission of application for 2020 training programme for trainees from developing States organized by DORD is now posted on the ISA homepage.
The programme is planned for between June and September 2020 for a duration of 30 days. Application for the programme should be submitted, in the forms required by the ISA, to the ISA by the 18 October 2019 deadline.
Please check the ISA homepage for further information:
https://www.isa.org.jm/training/deep-ocean-resources-development-co-ltd-japan
We attended the 25th Annual Assembly and Council of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica, from 15 July to 26 July 2019.
The official commemoration of ISA's 25th anniversary was held on the 25th of July as this year is the 25th year since the ISA was established. The anniversary received statements from high level officials, such as the Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Most Honorable Andrew Holness, followed by others, such as the President of Nauru, Mr. Baron Waqa, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, Mr. Miguel de Serpa Soares, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Secretary-General for the UN Oceans Conference, Mr. Liu Zehnmin, and President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Mr. Jin-Hyun Paik.
During the commemoration, Dr. Mauricio Shimabukuro of Brazil was awarded for the 2019 edition of the ISA Secretary-General's Award for Excellence in Deep Sea Research, which started last year. Also, the Secretary-General launched the database called DeepData, which contains environmental data submitted by ISA's contractors.
The environmental data collected from DORD's marine surveys is also part of DeepData and further development of the database is anticipated.
Under the exploration contract with the ISA, a training programme for trainees from developing States has started since July 21, 2019.
This programme will be conducted from July 21 until August 28, 2019, in order to improve knowledge of trainees towards deep-sea mineral resources development.
Various training sessions, from lectures to at-sea training, are planned in cooperation with a number of institutions, such as Kochi University, that have abundant knowledge and experience of study and research on deep-sea mineral resources.
A welcome party for the trainees was held on July 22, 2019.
We had a presentation titled “Preliminary Shipboard Observations of Nodule Fauna in a Polymetallic Nodule Area of the Western Part of the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone” at the 29th International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference (ISOPE-2019) held between 16-21 June 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The contents of the presentation were about deep-sea organisms collected from the ocean survey conducted last year. Nodule fauna, the organisms live on polymetallic nodules, are attracting attention worldwide in recent years as one of the baseline survey items.
In this presentation, we explained the results on the variety and faunal density of nodule fauna collected from DORD’s license area.
International Conference Venue
Presentation by DORD staff
We participated the workshop on the development of standards and guidelines for the Mining Code was held from 13-15 May 2019 in Pretoria, South Africa.
One of the expected outcomes of the workshop was to establish a process for the development of standards for exploitation activities in the Area. The workshop included some presentations by experts from related industries and some countries, as well as scientists, and group discussions on relevant topics.
The report of the workshop is to be drafted by a small working group as the second part of the workshop held from 16-17 May 2019.
We attended the 25th Annual Assembly of the International Seabed Authority(ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica, from 25 February to 1 March 2019.
The ISA is currently under the development of exploitation regulations and we participate this development process as a stakeholder.
