Seabed mining in Aotearoa

Vulnerable coastal communities, especially in the Pacific, will pay the highest price. Peer-reviewed science shows that deep sea mining is almost certain to cause lasting damage to deep sea ecosystems. This means potentially severe impacts on countries and communities that depend on the Pacific Ocean.

Deep sea mining could harm the fish populations that provide food and livelihoods for many Indigenous Pacific communities. These communities have profound cultural and spiritual ties with the sea.

International opposition to the deep sea mining industry continues to grow.

A growing list of countries – including New Zealand and several Pacific Island nations, Germany, France, Spain and Chile – are proposing a pause or a ban on issuing licences. Five more countries joined the call at the last International Seabed Authority meeting in July-August 2024, bringing the total to 32 nations.

Seabed mining is a very new industry. Apart from a few small tests, no commercial mining has happened yet. But the companies involved are preparing to start full-scale production.

Seabed mining is the practice of removing metals and minerals from the ocean’s seabed. Thousands of metres below the surface, deposits of these metals and minerals like manganese, nickel and cobalt have built up on the seafloor into potato-sized nodules over millions of years.

To mine these metals, gigantic machines weighing more than a blue whale would scoop deposits from the deep ocean floor. They’d then pump the mined material up to a ship through up to several kilometres of tubing. Sand, seawater and other mineral waste would then be pumped back into the water.

Like mining on land, deep sea mining is extremely destructive. But mining the ocean floor is risky for so many reasons.

The full environmental impacts of deep seabed mining are hard to predict. But they’re likely to be highly damaging, both within and beyond the areas being mined.

The oceans are facing more pressures now than at any time in human history, and are threatened by overfishing and the climate crisis. Our oceans absorb and store carbon, and give more than three billion people their livelihoods.

Danger to habitats

The nodules containing the metal deposits have taken millions of years to form and are one of the keystones of deep sea life. When they are gone, they cannot be replaced; nor can the ecosystems that thrive around them. This would cause disruption all the way up the food chain that Pacific communities – and all of us – rely on.

Mining these deposits would destroy biodiversity and habitats which have far reaching benefits to all life on Earth that aren’t fully understood. The deep ocean is a vast reservoir of biodiversity, from glowing sharks to armoured snails, with new species being discovered every year.