The Department for Continental Shelf, Maritime Zones Administration & Exploration (CSMZAE) operates under the aegis of the Prime Minister’s Office. Its mission is primarily to delineate and establish its maritime zones in accordance with international laws and conventions and to ensure the effective management of these maritime zones. The CSMZAE is responsible for the formulation of policies in ocean affairs and for the establishment of legal and regulatory frameworks governing the sustainable management of the non-living resources in the maritime zones of Mauritius including hydrocarbon and mineral exploration and development.
Its main objectives are, inter alia, to ensure orderly, safe, rational management of non-living ocean resources including the seabed area and the underlying sub-soil; ascertain sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting our non-living ocean resources; carry out the delimitation of our maritime boundary as provided for, under international conventions; develop regulatory and operational framework to enable exploration and exploitation activities in our maritime zones and oversee upstream activities of any Petroleum sector; rationalise and harmonise all ocean-resources related matters; regulate Marine Scientific Research; and contribute to energy security and Maritime safety. CSMZAE also has the responsibility of preparing the submissions for Extended Continental Shelf and a Marine Spatial Plan for the Republic of Mauritius.
CSMZAE has been mandated to elaborate the Marine Spatial Plan for the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Republic of Mauritius in view of the increasing demand for marine space in the EEZ for various purposes, particularly, fisheries and aquaculture, tourism and leisure.
For more information, please contact CSMZAE.
The objective of the Ocean Observatory E-platform is to centralise data pertaining to the maritime zones of the Republic of Mauritius in order to facilitate data discovery and data sharing between researchers, partners and users involved in management, policy and planning. It is built using the GeoNode open source platform.
Data management tools built into the E-platform allow for integrated creation of data, metadata, and map visualizations. Each dataset in the system can be shared publicly or restricted to allow access to only specific users. Communication tools on the E-platform enable users and data providers to interact among themselves and thereby facilitate the access and usability of data. User profiles and the contact information of data providers can be viewed by all users of the E-platform.
The E-platform also serves as a platform to provide access to cruise reports and data collected during research cruises that have been approved under the Maritime Zones (Conduct of Marine Scientific Research) Regulations 2017. The E-platform thereby ensures the dissemination and flow of scientific data and information resulting from marine scientific research as stipulated under Article 244 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Please read these Terms of Use carefully as they contain important information about your rights and obligations when using the Ocean Observatory E-platform as well as when contributing data that could be distributed on the E-platform.
The E-platform is also designed to be a flexible platform that software developers can extend, modify or integrate against to meet requirements in their own applications.
For more information about GeoNode, please visit the GeoNode website.