Having spent the past couple of years campaigning for a moratorium on deep sea mining, Phil McCabe, Pacific Lead for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition says he is seeing increasing support from countries calling for seabed mining operations to be stopped before they even start. These calls for a moratorium are becoming louder as the deadline looms to allow deep sea mining in international waters to begin in July 2023.
Back in 2021, a Canadian mining company with exploratory permits in the Pacific Ocean, through its state sponsor, Nauru, triggered an international law that meant the International Seabed Authority (ISA) had until July 2023 to create a set of regulations for seabed mining in international waters, so that companies could apply to start mining operations.
This deadline has caused some alarm with 12 countries calling for a moratorium, precautionary pause or outright ban on deep sea mining. These counties include France, Germany, Spain, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador.
(Listen to the full interview below:)
“We're calling for a moratorium, a pause…. A bunch of big companies like Google, Samsung and Volkswagen have all stood up to support a moratorium and say they won't take these deep sea metals or materials into their supply chains,” said Phil.
The area of the ocean they are proposing to mine is in the middle of the Pacific, between Hawaii and Mexico. They want to mine vast areas of seafloor that contain polymetallic nodules, which are rocks that contain several metals in them.
“It's an area that they call the abyssal plain. So it's 4 to 6000 metres deep and it's as wide as the United States. And there's 17 exploration permits that spread right across that,” said Phil.
“It's international waters. So it's not any one country's space and the resources that exist there have been deemed by international law as the common heritage of humankind. Every one of us has a stake in it and it's only supposed to be used if it benefits all of humanity.”
In simple terms, the deep sea mining process would involve vacuuming up the polymetallic nodules and sediment from the seafloor to extract the minerals. The waste material from this process would be released back into the water column.
The rocks, or polymetallic nodules, that mining companies want to extract take millions of years to form and act as a habitat for deep sea organisms. The mining process also involves sucking up about 5-10 centimetres of sediment that the rocks sit in - another established habitat for organisms - that is also a “foundational aspect to the whole food chain or food web within the ocean.”
The ocean, and more specifically the deep sea, is one of the most poorly understood parts of the planet and the most difficult to access as well. Some scientists have uncovered evidence that the deep sea could possibly be the most biodiverse area on the planet.
“It's not like there's some animals here and some organisms that exist in this area and then 20 kilometres that way there's some different ones. It's more like 70 metres that way and there's a whole different array of organisms that exist there.”
One of Phil’s biggest concerns is that deep sea mining could impact the ocean’s natural ability to sequester carbon. The deep sea and the seabed of the ocean are one of the biggest carbon sinks in the world and disturbing this process could have an impact on climate change.
There are also unknown factors. Scientists are yet to fully understand the carbon sequestering processes of the ocean.
“You're screwing with the machine. The most powerful machine that we have - the ocean. We need to be moving to improve ocean health rather than starting new activities that deplete ocean health.”
One of the justifications for deep sea mining is that minerals like cobalt and nickel are required to produce electric car batteries but Phil says that the technology around EV batteries is advancing rapidly with some manufacturing processes removing cobalt and nickel completely.
“The battery technology is moving really fast. There are batteries coming out that are based primarily on graphene or iron, so we don't really need the metals from the ocean floor to the extent that they're portraying.”
Phil is hopeful that more countries will support the moratorium and looks at the example of Antarctica, where 30 years ago a decision was made not to mine the area and to instead make it ‘a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science.
“Imagine what Antarctica would be like today had they not made that decision 30 years ago. And this space in international waters, again, it's similar to Antarctica. Nobody, no one country owns it.”
Through his work with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, Phil is off to Panama on Monday to work with the governments of Panama, Palau and France to put on an event supporting the deep sea moratorium at the Our Ocean Conference.
Following the conference, Phil will be attending the ISA meeting held in Jamaica at the end of March to continue to advocate for a moratorium on deep sea mining.
Interested in finding out more? You can follow Phil’s journey on twitter @philoceans and any updates on the Deep Sea Mining Moratorium at https://savethehighseas.org/ or through their FB page https://www.facebook.com/DeepSeaConservationCoalition/.