The International Seabed Authority is meeting in Kingston, Jamaica to discuss the future of deep sea mining.
The two-week meeting takes place at a critical moment for the oceans, with a historic opportunity to get ahead of a new extractive industry and stop deep sea mining before it starts.
But mining companies like The Metals Company are desperately pushing for the quick adoption of regulations.
“Pushing for regulations is like they are telling us. We know we will destroy the last pristine ecosystem of earth, but we will do it by the book,” says Greenpeace campaigner Louisa Casson, who is attending the meeting.
“Heavy machines don’t belong at the bottom of the ocean because the only safe and acceptable mining is no mining at all. The mining companies are impatient to get started. This has led to desperate attempts to get rules in place so they have a justification for destruction.”
Mining companies are hoping that the controversial ISA Secretary-General Michael Lodge will be reelected.
Greenpeace says Lodge’s track record shows he’s unfit to be elected for a third term.
Casson says: “A third term for Michael Lodge would not only put the oceans under threat, it risks further damaging public trust in the regulator, as the person in charge of guarding the seabed has repeatedly demonstrated an inappropriately close relationship to the industry that plans to destroy it for profit. It is time for change at the ISA, starting by putting conservation at the heart of its work.”
Both the Pacific and Aotearoa are on the frontline of the campaign against seabed mining.
Greenpeace Aotearoa deep sea mining campaigner Juressa Lee says: “In Aotearoa and across the Pacific, generations of Indigenous Peoples have endured extractive colonial industries that have caused biodiversity loss, accelerated the climate crisis, and increased inequity and human rights breaches. The attempt to mine the seabed here, and The Metals Company’s plans for the wider Pacific is colonisation and extractivism in action, and we must resist.”
“However, an increasing number of governments (27) recognise that the only way to prevent irreversible damage to the ocean is to support a moratorium.
“Just last week, the US state of Hawai’i banned seabed mining, recognising the impacts of seabed mining on the ocean, species and habitats are unknown.
“We’re hoping that other Pacific countries will take the opportunity at the ISA and now call for a moratorium on deep sea mining.
“But although Aotearoa has called for a moratorium, the dangers of seabed mining in Aotearoa is real with this Luxon government’s war on nature.
“The Fast Track Approvals process is encouraging wannabe seabed miners like Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR). Now a second company Ngarara Exploration Limited (NEL), whose sole director is a former Chief Financial Officer of TTR, is also eyeing up seabed mining in the South Taranaki Bight.
“TTR’s destructive seabed mining project has already been rejected by iwi and hapū, environmental experts, and the local community.
“The more we learn about deep sea mining, the harder it is to justify it.”
It’s time for New Zealand to take a stand. Join our call on the New Zealand government to back a global moratorium on seabed mining.
