The Royal Society has submitted evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into sustainable seas.
The key points from the Royal Society’s submission are:
- Exploration for minerals and new sources of chemicals from the oceans is now active in many parts of the world, and it is likely that activity will increase significantly in the coming years
- It is important to consider the drivers, opportunities, challenges, and wider consequences of utilising these emerging classes of resource. Sustainable use of these novel resources could have significant benefits, but involves interaction with a natural environment that is challenging to access and less well understood than that on land