Clarion Clipperton Zone, Eastern Central Pacific Ocean – Activists on the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior have taken the first-ever action at sea against companies preparing to mine the Pacific Ocean’s seabed. The activists displayed banners reading “Stop Deep Sea Mining” in front of a ship chartered by DeepGreen, one of the companies spearheading the drive to mine the barely explored deep-sea ecosystem.
A second peaceful protest also took place in San Diego’s port in the US, where Greenpeace activists unfolded a “Stop Deep Sea Mining” banner targeting the ship chartered by another leading deep-sea mining company, Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR), from Belgium. This ship is carrying a pre-prototype mining robot for impact tests this month at depths of over 4,000m on the Pacific Ocean’s international seabed.
Both protests highlight the risks of this nascent extractive industry, which is rapidly advancing its exploration activities and developing deep sea mining technologies for commercial mining of the deep ocean. The deep ocean is one of Earth’s least understood and least explored ecosystems, which is home to significant biodiversity, and also acts as a vital carbon sink.
Dr Sandra Schoettner, deep-sea biologist and oceans campaigner with Greenpeace, said: “Machines weighing more than a humpback whale are already being lined up for tests on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Scientists have repeatedly warned that deep sea mining would have terrible consequences for ocean ecosystems we barely understand. With the worsening climate and biodiversity crises facing us, deep sea mining is a scandalous threat to the health of our oceans. The deep sea must stay off-limits to mining.”
Last week, businesses including BMW, Volvo, Google and Samsung all all committed to excluding the use of ocean-mined minerals in a blow to the emerging industry.
The deep sea mining industry is dominated by a handful of companies headquartered in the Global North.
Last year, a Greenpeace International investigation revealed that through subsidiaries, subcontractors and partnerships, three corporations have seized control of deep sea mining contracts covering half a million square kilometres of the international seabed in the Pacific.
Meanwhile, the few developing island nations sponsoring these contracts are exposed to significant financial liabilities, which come on top of the impacts of overfishing, pollution and the climate emergency.
Victor Pickering, an activist from Fiji currently on board the Rainbow Warrior, held a banner reading: “Our Pacific, not yours to destroy!”. He said: “The ocean provides food for our families and connects all of us Pacific islands from one island to another. I am taking action because our people, our land, are already facing the threats of extreme storms, rising sea levels, plastic pollution and industrially depleted fish populations. I cannot stay silent and watch another threat – deep sea mining – take away our future.”
Many Pacific civil society groups, churches, traditional leaders and grassroots activists are vehemently opposed to deep sea mining and have been making their resistance known for a long time. Pacific Island States including Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu have voiced their rejection of this extractive activity for posing a threat to the environment.
“Governments must agree on a Global Ocean Treaty in 2021 that puts protection at the heart of global ocean governance instead of exploitation. The more we disrupt the seabed, the more we put ourselves at risk, especially the Pacific island communities who depend on healthy oceans”, said Schoettner.
Ends.
Photos available HERE
Contacts
Sol Gosetti, Media Coordinator for the Protect the Oceans campaign: [email protected], +54 (11) 28313271 WhatsAspp +44 (0) 7380845754
Greenpeace International Press Desk: [email protected], +31 (0) 20 718 2470 (available 24 hours)
Discussion
great work GP, please help the Cook Islands BAN DEEP SEA MINING campaign. this is the greatest threat to the Ocean this century.
The world needs the minerals and I would much prefer them to cautiously remove nodules off a pretty much barren ocean floor than to bulldoze hundreds of acres of rainforest and have child laborers working in the mines. I believe this method will work and succeed. We can't all be NIMBY if we want cell phones, electric cars and gadgets.
Framing this issue as as either DSM or terrestrial mining is a false dichotomy. Deep-sea Mining is adding harmful mining on top of already harmful terrestrial mining. We can decide to continue on the path of extraction and destruction of the natural world or we can acknowledge that alternatives and metal recycling technology exist and that a circular economy and consumer behavior change are possible.
Industrial behemoths especially of the West have already ierreparbaly damaged the blue planet. Its disastores environmental consquences begin to express itself in the form of flashfloods, extreme hot and cold climatic conditions, warming of polar regions etc. Humans are on impending peril of garguantan proportions. The sofar undisturbed deep sea part of the earth is now facing the threat of industrial hegemony. Do we need those materials to be mined for a simple living? The ICJ must intervenue to stop such disastrous advantres furth with to save the earth for us and posterity.
I totally support your efforts at educating the world on Corporations who are abusing the planet. Stop the abuse of our oceans and it's wildlife and plants. Mining should not be in any oceans on the planet.
I am a contributor to Greenpeace, but I'm a bit concerned that you sometimes don't think things through. You always focus on the negative and in so doing you are preventing companies such as Tesla who are incredibly Net positive for the environment from furthering their cause. If you hold the likes of Tesla back that is a net negative impact to the environment in my opinion.
We don't yet know what the impact of deep sea mining is and you don't appear to have weighed up the massive environmental NET positives deep sea mining could have if it isn't too invasive.
Decisions like this have to be taken in the round, you can't just decide deep sea mining is on its own a bad thing therefor we have to stop it, it has to be taken in context.
PERHAPS you do consider these things but they aren't mentioned ... you only ever mention the negative impacts, I have seen no publication weighing up the plus's and minus's of deep sea mining. You need to also take into account.
a. There isn't enough materials available for the big increase in electric vehicles and other environmental positive industries which need these minerals.
b. The current mining on land of metals, particularly of elements such as colbolt is very bad for the environment and the humans that are extracting it.
c. Do we really understand the impact of deep sea mining? Do we know how bad it is?
Where is the risk assessment? Please show some balanced studies which demonstrate that the potential for deep sea mining is worse than the alternative... I haven't seen anything and I can't just support sentiment.
Surely Greenpeace need to be working with deep sea mining companies to understand exactly what methods they are using and what the consequences are.
We need cobalt and other rare metals in order to progress towards a carbon neutral future, if you keep automatically stopping explorations which according to many will have a net positive affect on the environment (i.e. by stopping mining the likes of Cobolt and others above ground) then you are part of the problem not part of the solution.
Please don't quote BMW as a positive company in this.
I used to be a big BMW fan and owner, but, BMW are alleged to be part of the Diesel scandal and have totally failed to demonstrate environmental awareness in not switching to electric, they are way behind the curve of electrification. I suspect that the reason they have signed up to this is that they are so far behind in electrification and they want to hold up the electric car industry so that they don't lose their entire market share. How can that be good for the environment?
The Tesla model 3 has taken over from the BMW 3 series as the mist popular car in it's bracket... that's why BMW are signing, calling out BMW is hypocrisy.
You are unbelievably hypocritical. Scared of China are you? I have just searched your site and I can find nothing on the largest, by far, fishing fleet ever to be assembled, raping our planets oceans. Instead you pick only on the soft targets, make an example of them just to raise more dollars. You are not a solution to, but complicit, in the harm China is doing to this planet. . . . Bet this doesn't get posted below.