Threats to our Ocean Heritage

Invasive practices and increased effects of climate change that disturb and damage Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) accelerate its deterioration and increase the risks for the coastal communities.

Threats to our Ocean Heritage is a project developed in collaboration with The Ocean Foundation, an NGO dedicated to reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments, and will bring together evidence of the threats from trawl fishing, potentially polluting historic wrecks and deep-sea mining, engaging international stakeholders that can affect urgent change. The Ocean Foundation will convene experts to develop standards to address the threats, including developing a global framework for intervention on Potentially Polluting Wrecks (PPWs).

There is a time-limited conjunction of threat and opportunity. Never has UCH been under greater threat from industrial activity and the adverse effects of accelerating climate change. Equally, the launch of the UN Decade of Ocean Science and the agreement on the High Seas treaty means that there has never been a better opportunity to define and promote the standard and protocols required to deal with the urgent threats and safety challenges.

The Lloyd’s Register Foundation Ocean Safety Foresight Review stresses the need for vastly increased effort around purposeful marine data collection and supports the UN Global Compact sustainable ocean principles calling for interventions to stimulate sharing of relevant scientific data. This project is an opportunity to unite cultural and scientific data to effect real change.

September 2024

• At the June 2023 Meeting of State Parties (UNESCO 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage), the need to integrate natural heritage in the work around UCH and the threat represented by PPWs was emphasised. Policymakers, maritime leaders and stakeholders are being encouraged to engage with these complex challenges at international level.
• Threats to our Ocean Heritage aims to broaden ocean literacy on complex topics across a wide range of stakeholders. Three peer-reviewed open-access books on the threats to UCH posed by trawling, deep seabed mining and PPWs have been developed as part of the project to help inform action.
• The first book on Bottom Trawling was released as an open access publication by SpringerBriefs in Archaeology in May 2024. The volume brings together case studies from specialists that cover a broad geographic range; provides a comprehensive review of the damages to ocean heritage, both natural and cultural, from bottom trawling; and suggests steps to mitigate the impacts on heritage from bottom trawling.
• Two workshops have taken place under Project Tangaroa. The project is developing a global network of experts to deliver authoritative input to global ocean stewardship campaigns and provide a source of ongoing advice to regional and national authorities and changemakers.

January 2025

• Springer have praised the two published volumes (on Bottom Trawling and Potentially Polluting Wrecks) which have been incredibly well received. They are the best performing Springer Briefs with over 13,000 views each in just 8 months. This has tripled the amount of views of Springer books that have been viewed in other categories in that time. The third in the planned series on Deep Sea Mining (DSM) is a case study of how you can represent local voices and communities in a peer review volume. Editor Jarvis' approach has enabled inclusion of people that are normally left out of this space.

June 2025

• Geopolitical events have significantly raised the profile of challenges around bottom trawling, deep sea mining and potentially polluting wrecks in recent months.
• Threats to Our Ocean Heritage and Project Tangaroa help to inform this by bringing together open access evidence and convening experts at an international level.
• A first draft of the Deep Sea Mining (DSM) book is with the publisher. It includes a foreword by International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS-ICUCH) and a preface by the Deep-Sea Conservation Coalition. The trawl fishing and potentially polluting wrecks (PPW) books have both been received well within the UN Decade. The project team is supporting several cultural heritage activities at the United National Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice where bans on deep sea trawling are attracting interest. The bottom trawling book has 21,000 views, 458 downloads, and 5 scholarly citations.  PPW book readership is now over 17,000, with 419 downloads and 5 scholarly citations.
• The Malta Manifesto to clean up potentially polluting wrecks launched by Project Tangaroa as an official side event of UNOC on 12 June.