NOAA Strategic Plan for Deep-Sea Coral and Sponge Ecosystems: Research, Management, and International Cooperation.

This Strategic Plan outlines National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) international strategy to enhance the conservation of deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems. It focuses on three main objectives: 1) exploration and research; 2) conservation and management; and 3) international cooperation. The Plan emphasises the need for collaboration, research, and management measures, in order to study and analyse deep-sea coral and sponge complex ecosystems, and then protect and conserve them. It also highlights the statutory authorities and policy drivers that guide NOAA's efforts in this area. The document serves as a comprehensive guide for NOAA's exploration, research, conservation, and management activities related to deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems. The Strategic Plan and the related programmes are based on four pillars: increasing resilience to climate change; reducing land-based sources of marine pollution; improving fisheries’ sustainability; restoring viable coral populations.
Concerning its three main objectives, this Strategic Plan outlines the following measures and actions: understanding the biology and ecology of deep-sea corals and sponge, and studying their biodiversity; analysing the extent and degree of impact to deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems caused by fishing and other human activities; creation of inventory and data collection of species associated with deep-sea corals and sponges and their habitat utilisation patterns; protecting marine areas containing known deep-sea coral or sponge communities from impacts of bottom-tending fishing gears, and then reducing further interactions between fishing gears and deep-sea corals and sponges; enhancing conservation of deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems in National marine sanctuaries; strengthening avoidance and mitigation of adverse impacts of non-fishing activities on deep sea coral and sponge ecosystems; promoting international partnerships to conserve deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems through the sustainable management of deep-sea fisheries activities; addressing Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing and all related fishing activities; ensuring a sustainable international trade of deep-sea coral and sponge species and of their products; increasing international exploration and research of these ecosystems.