The ABNJ Environment

For an overview of human activities that take place in ABNJ, see here.


This is a placeholder page.

In future, we envisage that this portion of the website will be equivalent to the governance portion with its interactive ABNJ governance diagram in terms of size, comprehensiveness and scope. Our aim is to make it easier for you to find information about the ABNJ environment and human activities taking place in ABNJ, and to navigate the many existing marine data portals and data catalogues on the web.

There are many existing data portals with relevance for ABNJ, from metadata catalogues (e.g. on Ocean+ and ODIMS) to webGIS portals (e.g. PacGeo). We have started to build a database of these, which will eventually be linked to the database that sits behind the tables presented with our interactive map.

If we are able to fully develop this website in future, our aim will be to

  • provide a brief overview of the ABNJ environment and human activities taking place there,
  • provide a visually intuitive overview of existing data portals (with direct links to them),
  • allow you to easily search for portals where you can access information about a particular region, theme, or sector of interest to you, and
  • allow you to display key data layers on our interactive map.


On the latter point, inasmuch as relevant geospatial data is available and accessible for use on existing data portals, we could add the following types of information to the interactive map:

  • the geographical footprint of human activities e.g. shipping traffic and fishing
  • areas where specific management measures apply, e.g. fisheries closures
  • areas where activities are planned, or where licenses have been issued / will be issued by management bodies, e.g. mining licence areas
  • areas identified as ecologically sensitive or important, e.g. VMEs, EBSAs
  • information about the physical environment, e.g. bathymetry, sea surface temperature, currents, frontal systems, upwelling areas, seasonal ice cover
  • information about the biological environment, e.g. areas of high primary productivity, species’ distributions, migration routes for specific species, seabed habitats


Decisions on what to prioritise will need to be based on practical considerations (data availability and access rights), and on your needs and interests. Therefore, if you have any comments or ideas, please let us know using the feedback button.

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