Ocean Biodiscovery: a day with the experts

Dr Adrian Glover presenting on 'Life in the Deep Sea'

A critical priority for the government in the seabed minerals sector is the protection of the marine environment. To that end, the Authority (Seabed Minerals Authority) and Service (National Environment Service) took advantage of a visit by marine environmental experts for the DEEPEND workshop to also host an Ocean Biodiscovery Day in December 2022 that addressed a wide range of issues associated with the seabed minerals sector.

“This was too good of an opportunity to miss” said Dr John Parianos Technical director at the Authority, “All these experts in one room, we really wanted the public to come and ask questions of them.”

The experts were from the United Kingdom, Fiji, Australia, United States, and not least the Cook Islands. Presentations were given by representatives from universities, museums, government and industry. Attendees included members of the public and NGOs.

After opening remarks from Service Director Halatoa Fua and Authority Commissioner Alex Herman, Dr Adrian Glover from the British National History Museum started the talks with a fascinating photo-odyssey of life in the deep sea including high resolution images of colorful creatures taken at several kilometers water depth.

A dose of scientific pragmatism followed in the next talk with Dr Tammy Horton explaining the critical importance in maintaining biodiversity collections including over 100 years of stories from the one that she manages today at National Oceanographic Center UK.
At the break, attendees were able to look at locally collected macrofauna under a microscope (strangely enough marine “macro” fauna are those between 2 cm and ¼ of a mm in size!). Special thanks to Natural Heritage Trust for helping arrange this part of the display. “It’s simply mind blowing to see the detailed forms of these little worms up close, let alone consider the vital environmental function that they provide” shared Tanga Morris Technical Officer at SBMA, “To think these tiny animals are under our feet whenever we walk in the lagoon!”

The next session included well presented talks on the area of biodiscovery with Joape Ginigii (University of the South Pacific), Dr Katherine Duncan (University of Strathclyde), and Dr Marcel Jaspers (University of Aberdeen) they took the listeners through the colorful but complicated path from the collection of organisms, separation, and testing of bacteria against deadly pathogens, and finally the refinement of the chemical components that makes our everyday drugs work.

“It’s great to see this effort starting in the Cooks alongside seabed minerals” said Licensing and compliance office Te-Ara Henderson.

Marcel Jaspers delivering his presentation on “Medicines of the sea”

Consultants Dr Adrian Flynn (Fathom Pacific) and Dr Charles Morgan (Moana Hohonu) also presented very detailed presentations explaining the environmental work programs planned for the Cook Islands over the next four years. “ As technology develops and collection of data continues so does our understanding of the seabed,” shared Authority Intern Inano Harmon.

The final pair of presentations was by consultant Dr Becky Hitchins (Sepiola Marine), who called on her extensive experience at the International Seabed Authority, Commonwealth Secretariat and in the UK, to summarise the current top five environmental issues associated with seabed minerals. While there has been recent scientific and engineering progress on some of them, there is certainly more work still needed before decisions can be made on whether development can proceed.

This was followed by Tanga Morris and Dr John Parianos who took listeners through the six current environmental workstreams being developed by the Authority. This included database design, international collaboration, spatial planning, and a forthcoming regional environmental management plan and initiatives to encourage environmental research and to complete independent impact assessments.

“With exploration taking place in our waters over the next 4 years, it’s exciting to see how the data collected will contribute to our knowledge of our Marae Moana,” concluded Senior Technical Officer, Rima Browne.