Motion 032

Seamounts are vital deep-sea ecosystems that support marine biodiversity. In 2004, the 3rd IUCN World Congress adopted resolution 66 calling on the IUCN Director General to “promote and strive to ensure the conservation of seamounts, deep sea corals and other vulnerable deep-sea habitats”.

Since 2004 the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has adopted annual resolutions (including significantly in 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2016) that have consistently expressed its significant concern regarding the conservation of seamounts and recognising their ecological importance and vulnerability. UNGA resolutions have called upon States and regional fisheries management organizations to take immediate action to sustainably manage fish stocks and “protect vulnerable marine ecosystems, including seamounts, cold water corals and hydrothermal events” from destructive practices. Regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) are required to protect VMEs where they are known or likely to occur.

Twenty years of substantial scientific evidence supports the designating all high seas seamounts as vulnerable marine ecosystems, based on a robust body of scientific research confirming the widespread presence of VME indicator communities, habitats and species. According to the FAO Guidelines, an area needs to meet only a single VME criterion to be designated as a VME. Seamounts often meet all five: Uniqueness or rarity; Functional significance as a habitat; Fragility; Life history traits of component species that make recovery difficult; and Structural complexity.

All available current scientific evidence indicates that bottom trawling on seamounts results in significant adverse impacts (SAIs), with no information suggesting that these impacts can be prevented during such activity on seamounts.

The IUCN has previously stated in public communications that seamounts are hotspots of biodiversity and home to many endemic species. It has also reported that damage to seamounts and their overexploitation can have widespread consequences on ocean health, food security, medicine and other benefits that the ocean provides to seamounts. While many aspects of seamounts are poorly understood, the IUCN has asserted that there is an urgent need to ensure seamount conservation.

On 12 December 2024, the UNGA adopted by consensus the annual Sustainable Fisheries Resolution (A/79/L.38). The resolution schedules a UN workshop in 2026 as part of a process to review the implementation of UNGA commitments to manage deep water fisheries on the high seas to protect biodiversity, including seamounts, in the deep sea. In committing States and RFMO to take action, the resolution recognizes, the immense importance and value of deep-sea ecosystems and the biodiversity they contain.

The UN’s 2024 resolution is a reaffirmation of the critical importance and urgency of States and RFMOs to fulfill their commitments. This motion calls on IUCN members to support that call to action: to fully and finally implement their UNGA commitments to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems. It is a timely and time-bound call to action, which can help to deliver these critical conservation measures.