United Nations (United States) – The prospect of exploiting the depths of the Pacific Ocean on a large scale to extract minerals, which seemed distant, has become real and is now raising alarm bells among defenders of the oceans.
“I think this is a real and imminent risk,” said Emma Wilson of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalitionan organization that brings together environmental groups and scientific bodies.
“There are many stakeholders who are warning of significant environmental risks.”
And while the treaty to protect the high seas is likely to pass after negotiations begin on Monday, it is unlikely to reduce risks in the short term, as it will not take effect immediately and will have to reach an agreement with the International Funds Authority. Seafarers (AIFM).
This UN agency with 167 member countries has authority over the ocean floors outside the exclusive economic zones of member states, which extend up to 200 nautical miles, or 370 kilometers, from the coasts.
But conservation groups claim that the AIFM has two contradictory missions: to protect the seabed of the high seas and at the same time to organize the extraction of resources from the ocean floor.
So far, some 30 research centers and companies have received authorization to explore – but not exploit – some limited areas.
In theory, extractive activities should not start before negotiators approve a mining code, which has been debated for nearly a decade.
making waves
But Nauru, a small Pacific island nation impatient with slow progress, made an impact in June 2021 by invoking a clause that allows it to require the adoption of the relevant rules within two years.
Once that term expires, the Government could request a mining contract for Nori (Nauru Ocean Resources), a subsidiary of the Canadian The Metals Company.
Nauru offered what it called a “good faith” promise to wait until after an AIFM meeting in July, in the hope that a mining code would be adopted.
“All we need are rules and regulations,” said Margo Deiye, Nauru’s ambassador to the AIFM.
But it is “very unlikely” that a code will be agreed before July, said Pradeep Singh, an expert on maritime law at the Research Institute for Sustainability in Potsdam, Germany.
“There are too many items on the list that need to be worked out,” he said. Those points include the highly contentious issue of how to share profits held up at sea and how to measure environmental impact.
NGOs fear that Nori will get a mining contract without the protections of a mining code.
Conservation groups complain that the AIFM’s procedures are “dark” and its management “pro-extraction”.
Those accusations “have no foundation,” said AIFM Secretary General Michael Lodge.
Contracts are awarded by the agency’s board, not its secretariat.
“This is the only industry… that has been completely regulated before it started,” he said, adding that the reason there is no deep-sea mining “anywhere in the world right now is because of the existence of the AIFM.”
Target: 2024
However, The Metals Company gets ready.
“We will be ready, and we aim to be producing by the end of 2024,” said Gerard Barron, the company’s chief executive.
He assured that the company plans to collect 1.3 million tons of material in its first year and up to 12 million by 2028, “with the least possible impact.”
Barron says tons of polymetallic nodules rich in minerals such as manganese, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earths, which have been deposited on the ocean floor over the centuries, could be easily recovered.
In particular in the so-called Clipperton Fracture Zone, where Nori conducted “historic” tests at the end of 2022, at a depth of four kilometers.
But Jessica Battle of the WWF conservation group says it’s not that simple. The companies could, for example, suck matter from several meters deep, and not just from the surface of the seabed.
“It is a real problem to open a new extractive frontier in a place about which so little is known, without regulations,” he commented. “It would be disastrous.”
Scientists and activists claim that mining could destroy habitats and species, some of them still unknown, but possibly crucial to food chains; affect the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide; and generate noise that disturbs the ability of whales to communicate with each other.
Moratorium
“The deep ocean is the least known part of the ocean,” says biologist Lisa Levin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “So the change could happen without anyone ever seeing it.”
Levin has signed a petition calling for a moratorium on mining. Some companies and around a dozen countries back the petition, including France and Chile.
With their catchphrase “A battery on a rock”, The Metals Company emphasizes the world’s need for useful metals for electric vehicle batteries, as does Nauru.
But while island countries are among the first to suffer the impact of global warming, Nauru says it cannot wait forever for funds promised by rich countries to help it adapt to those impacts.
“We get tired of waiting,” says Deiye, the Nauruan ambassador.
According to Lodge, the arguments against extraction must be relativized. Of the 54% of the seabed under AIFM’s jurisdiction, he said, “less than 0.5% is under exploration…and of that 0.5%, less than 1% is likely to ever be mined.”
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