Mapping out the UK's marine autonomy legislation

Last week, a team from the Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom visited the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton to find out more about their marine autonomy capabilities and how marine autonomy is currently being used.

The visit followed earlier discussions between NOC, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Department for Transport (DfT) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) around how to define autonomy for use in legislation.

This is driven by a need to develop new UK legislation for the BBNJ Agreement. The BBNJ Agreement establishes objectives for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Alan Evans , Head of Marine Policy at NOC, was a member of the UK delegation during the negotiations at the Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs) on the BBNJ Agreement.

Whilst the UK has signed the BBNJ Agreement, the UK has not yet ratified it.

DfT representatives included policy and senior legal advisers from the Maritime Division. The whole-day visit included introductions to NOC, given by NOC Chief Executive Dr John Siddorn and Dr Maaten Furlong , Associate Director of National Marine Facilities.

An introduction to NOC’s Marine Autonomous Robotic Systems (MARS) development group was also given by Dr Alexander Phillips and presentations showing examples of uses of autonomy were given by Dr Julie Robidart (collection of eDNA) and James Burris (BIO-Carbon expedition).

The visitors were also given a tour of the MARS facilities led by Roland Rogers .

The visit gave DfT representatives the opportunity to find out more about NOC’s role in marine autonomy. This included the best practices that have been established through 30 years’ experience in developing and deploying autonomous capability, all of which are relevant to wider discussions on legislation, such as the BBNJ Agreement.