According to Mining News Pro - A handful of small nations in the South Pacific launched an uphill battle last week against the deep-sea mining of unattached, fist-sized rocks rich in rare-earth metals.
The stakes are potentially enormous.
Companies eager to scrape the ocean floor 5,000 to 6,000 meters below sea level stand to earn billions harvesting manganese, cobalt, copper and nickel, which are used to build batteries for electric vehicles.
But the extraction process would disfigure what may be the most pristine ecosystem on the planet and could take millennia, if not longer, for nature to repair.
The deep-sea jewels in question, called polymetallic nodules, grow with the help of microbes over millions of years around a kernel of organic matter, such as a shark's tooth or the ear-bone of a whale.
"They are living rocks, not just dead stones," former U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Sylvia Earle said in Lisbon.
"I look at them as miracles."
A nascent deep-sea mining industry also sees them as miraculous, though for different reasons.
"High grades of four metals in a single rock means that four times less ore needs to be processed to obtain the same amount of metal," notes The Metals Company, which has formed exploratory partnerships with three South Pacific nations — Nauru, Kiribati and Tonga — in the mineral-rich Clarion-Clipperton fracture zone.
Nodules also have low levels of heavy elements, which means less toxic waste compared to land-based extraction, according to the company.
Commercial mining has not started anywhere in the world, but about 20 research institutes or companies hold exploration contracts with the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Surangel Whipps Jr., president of Palau, kicked off the anti-mining campaign at the just-concluded U.N. Ocean Conference in Lisbon, flanked by Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.
"Deep-sea mining compromises the integrity of our ocean habitat and should be discouraged to the greatest extent possible," Whipps said, calling for an open-ended moratorium.
Like-minded neighboring states Samoa, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands have backed the call, along with more than 100 mostly green party legislators from three dozen nations across the world.
A similar motion put to a vote last September before the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) — an umbrella organization of 1,400 research institutes, environmental NGOs and indigenous groups — passed easily.
'Who's watching?'
"Mining, wherever it occurs, is well known to have environmental costs," said Earle, the scientist.
"On the land at least we can monitor, see and fix problems, and minimize the damage … 6,000 beneath the surface, who's watching?"
But in Lisbon, explicit support from other countries for a temporary ban on ocean-floor mining on the high seas, outside of national territorial waters known as exclusive economic zones, was scarce.
Chile stepped up, calling for a 15-year pause to allow for more research.
The United States, along with other developed nations, took a more ambiguous stance, calling for scientific evaluation of environmental impacts but not closing the door to future mining.
"We haven't taken an official position on it," U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said in an interview. "But we have expressed deep concerns about adequately researching the impacts of any deep-sea mining, and we have not approved any."
Stop deep-sea mining, says Macron, in call for new laws to protect ecosystems
French president, speaking on sidelines of UN ocean conference in Lisbon, urges more investment in science to protect high seas
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has called for a legal framework to stop deep-sea mining from going ahead and urged countries to put their money into science to better understand and protect the world’s oceans.
There is growing international interest in deep-sea mining but there is also pressure from some environmental groups and governments to either ban it or ensure it only goes ahead if appropriate regulations are in place.
Deep-sea mining would involve using heavy machinery on the ocean floor to suck up small rocks, known as nodules, that contain cobalt, manganese and other rare metals mostly used in batteries.
“We have … to create the legal framework to stop high-sea mining and to not allow new activities putting in danger these ecosystems,” Macron said on Thursday at an event on the sidelines of the UN ocean conference in Lisbon.
“But at the same time we need to promote our scientists and explorers to better know the high seas,” he added. “We need to better understand in order to protect.”
Although the president expressed concerns about deep-sea mining, France holds an exploration contract through the L’Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer (National Institute for Ocean Science) for a 75,000 sq km (29,000 sq mile) area in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an expanse of the north Pacific seabed rich in polymetallic nodules.
The International Seabed Authority (ISA), a UN body, is drawing up regulations governing seabed mining in the high seas – areas that are outside any national jurisdiction. Until global rules are in place, seabed mining is not allowed.