Extract from ABC News
Deep sea ecologist Patricia Esquete warns mining critical minerals on the seabed will damage ecosystems. (Supplied: Patricia Esquete)
In short:
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to open both US and international waters to deep-sea mining, ignoring a global treaty that controls the high seas.
Canadian mining group The Metals Company has sought a permit from the Trump administration to begin commercial deep-sea mining.
What's next?
From the middle of July, nations will gather in Jamaica to resume International Seabed Authority meetings to discuss developments on deep-sea mining and a moratorium.
Lying at the bottom of the ocean, thousands of metres below the surface, are reserves of what are considered to be the world's most critical minerals.
In the Pacific Ocean between North America and Hawaii lies a large area known as the Clarion-Clipperton zone — a particularly abundant area filled with copper, cobalt and nickel.
Now, the race is on to start mining these minerals.
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to open both US and international waters to deep-sea mining, ignoring a global treaty that controls the high seas.
The order was signed last week with the aim of boosting US production of critical minerals by mining mineral-rich "nodules" that take millions of years to form on the seabed.
Invertebrates move among mineral-rich deep sea nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton zone. (Wikimedia: GEOMAR, Nodules, CC BY 4.0)
The race to the seabed
The order states its purpose is to "establish the United States as a global leader in responsible seabed mineral exploration".
The race to the seabed has also sparked fear among environmentalists that it could permanently damage marine life.
The United Nations, environmental groups and a number of countries — including China — have accused Donald Trump of violating international law in ordering the fast-tracking of approval processes for deep-sea mining in US waters and international waters.
The order sidesteps the UN's International Seabed Authority, which has prevented such mining in international waters while it works on governance frameworks.
Scientists and climate activists also warn that changes to biodiversity could be irreversible if commercial mining of the seabed goes ahead.
About 300 species of deep sea annelids (worms) were identified in a 2023 study from the sea floor mud of the Clarion-Clipperton zone. (Supplied: Biodiversity Data Journal/Helena Wiklund et al)
A new species of Cnidaria, a sea anemone, discovered at 4,100 metres, lives on sponge stalks attached to a polymetallic nodule. (Supplied: NOAA/Craig Smith and Diva Amon ABYSSLINE Project)
Thirty-two countries are calling for a moratorium or precautionary ban until more is understood about the deep sea.
"There's a lot of species that depend directly or indirectly on the nodules to live because they live on top, underneath or around the nodules," deep-sea ecologist Dr Patricia Esquete said.
"That's something that we already know — if you take out the nodules, the ecosystem is gone … the whole living community is gone."
Countries including France have applied international pressure on the Australian government to ratify a high seas treaty protecting deep-sea biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions.
While it appears that will happen by June, calls from the UK and some Pacific Island nations for Australia to join a moratorium on deep-sea mining have not been answered.
What is deep-sea mining? And who wants to do it?
Deep-sea mining is the extraction of minerals — mainly polymetallic nodules rich in cobalt, nickel, and manganese — that lie on the seabed at about 4,000 metres below sea-level.
Countries have the right to regulate mining activities within their exclusive economic zones.
The International Seabed Authority (ISA), established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, regulates mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
A Canadian mining company has sought a permit from the Trump administration to begin commercial deep-sea mining in the Clarion-Clipperton zone, which some experts have described as a breach of international law.
The Metals Company (TMC) last month announced on its website it was seeking a permit to begin mining in international waters.
This week, it has submitted a commercial recovery permit under the US Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.
TMC has been one of many companies and countries undertaking exploratory work in the deep sea, spending hundreds of millions of dollars examining various minerals.
However, given how little is known about the deep sea, rules and regulations for commercial mining, created by the ISA, will not be ready for several more years.
"[TMC] realised that they're not going to get a mining permit through the ISA anytime soon," said Phil McCabe from the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition advocate Phil McCabe thinks more research is needed before thinking about nodule exploitation. (Supplied: Phil McCabe)
"A few weeks ago, they told the world that actually we're going to bypass the ISA and we're going to go for the USA …
"We need more information, more scientific information and that takes time," Mr McCabe said.
"What we know about the current iteration of what deep-sea mining would look like, it's inherently destructive."
TMC chief executive Gerard Barron told ABC News the company first collected nodules at a commercial scale in 2022 and that "the missing piece has really been the regulatory certainty".
The Metals Company wants to use nodule collectors to pick up the critical mineral-rich rocks on the seabed. (Youtube: The Metals Company) (GIPHY)
The ISA has condemned the announcement from TMC, stating the company "continues to disregard all scientific and economic warnings about the industry's risks".
Rick Valenta, director of the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland, said the zone covers an area "just under 80 per cent of the size of Australia" and granted license area is "about the size of Tasmania".
"The size of [one] license is larger than the total combined footprint of all land-based mining,"he said.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told ABC News that Australia doesn't condone deep-sea mining beyond national jurisdiction without the regulatory framework currently being negotiated by the ISA.
However, DFAT said TMC's announcement of a proposed application is a matter for TMC and the US government.
Information void as research in its infancy
Deep-sea ecologist Dr Esquete said because the deep sea has been so difficult to access, research in these parts of the world is only in its "infancy".
"It's been overlooked for many years, so we're just starting to understand and starting to reach ecosystems that had not been reached for decades," she told ABC News.
"We're doing it little by little … we cannot pretend to understand an ecosystem that we haven't been studying for a long time."
Corals and other species make use of deep sea nodules, creating ecological concerns about their removal. (Wikimedia: ROV-Team/GEOMAR, Nodule with coral, CC BY-NC 4.0)
A recent study in the journal Nature analysed the impacts on a 46-year-old test mining site in the Clarion-Clipperton zone.
"We found persistent impacts, lasting for nearly half a century, to the seabed environment and particularly the larger animals living in the area," UK National Oceanography Centre biogeosciences head Daniel Jones said.
"We also found the first early signs of a recovery process starting to take place, with some mobile animals returning to the tracks and shelled-amoeba-like xenophyophores recolonising.
"This early snapshot of ecological succession, where the species change over time, is what happens in most ecosystems after disturbance.
"But we do not know how long it will take for biodiversity to return to areas disturbed by deep-sea nodule mining, if they ever do."
The study looked at a 400-square-metre impact site but the ISA has granted 17 exploration contracts to would-be miners covering a total area of 1.28 million square kilometres.
The mining company behind Trump's deep sea executive order
Mr Barron said TMC has spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" over the past 14 years on environmental research to understand the impact of commercial deep-sea mining.
"Comparing those impacts to land-based alternatives, studying the recovery rates, and what the conclusions all point to is that the impacts are a fraction compared to land-based alternatives," he said.
But Dr Esquete believes the environmental impacts will be "way higher" than what TMC tries to portray.
"[The species] have all the characteristics of the elements that allows us to say these are vulnerable ecosystems that need protection,"she said.
"They are very special because they are completely different from any other environment on earth.
"They have very special adaptations from which we can learn from and learn about the origin of life."
Deep sea creatures from the Clarion-Clipperton zone. (Wikimedia: GEOMAR, CC BY 4.0)
What this means for international law
International environmental lawyer Duncan Currie said even though the US hasn't ratified the ISA, it has signed a more recent 1994 agreement, meaning the US is "bound by the law of the sea conventions".
"It's essentially the crucial provision about the deep sea being of common heritage of humankind … at the very least, what's called customary international law, which means binding on everybody," he said.
"The deep sea and the minerals belong to everyone … and so one country cannot go there and expropriate the minerals and keep them for themselves."
High seas legal expert Duncan Currie thinks international law could be breached if mining goes ahead under US permits. (Supplied: Duncan Currie)
Mr Currie said one of his biggest concerns of this possible permit is what it means for international law.
"The Sea Convention also controls things like freedom of navigation, maritime boundaries, fishing rights [and] the Marine scientific research," he said.
"…the whole host of really important matters, which are absolutely crucial to many, many countries come under the governance of the UN Convention on Law of the Sea.
"So if one country is driving a coach and horses through the law of the sea convention … then I think many countries are going to be deeply concerned about that."
Environmentalists alarmed by Pacific nations pursuing seabed mining
Sea law expert Karen Scott has another view — that because the US was not a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), in principle there was nothing to prevent it from developing its own regime.
But Professor Scott, from New Zealand's University of Canterbury, said one section of UNCLOS, part XI, could still be binding as customary international law.
Indigenous community concerned about impact
Among those worried about the effects of deep-sea mining are Indigenous people from the New Ireland Province in Papua New Guinea.
Jonathan Mesulam is the founder and coordinator of West Coast Development Foundation, a PNG-based non-governmental organisation.
He is working to promote conservation and warned the effects of deep-sea mining won't just affect the ocean.
Jonathan Mesulam is concerned about the impacts of deep sea mining on communities and culture. (Supplied: Jonathan Mesulam)
"Some of the people are totally connected to the ocean where we have our culture,"he said.
"In New Ireland we have this culture where people go out, go out and catch the fish … what will we tell our kids, the future generation, that we want to have this kind of culture.
"If we destroy our culture, then we will destroy our identity."
In the Cook Islands, Prime Minister Mark Brown is supportive of deep-sea mining, telling ABC News' The Pacific program that it could unlock access to financing which would build resilience against the impacts of climate change.
But ocean conservation advocate Lousia Castledine, who lives in the South Pacific's largest island, Rarotonga, said she is concerned about the environmental, cultural, social, and spiritual impacts of the industry.
"What we see here is a shift from protecting our environment that has long sustained us as a people to exploiting it in a way that is irreversible," the spokesperson for Ocean Ancestors said.
"It's probably the most unexplored place in the world and we know more about space than we do about the deep sea."
Louisa Castledine said that there is "too much at stake" to rush any decision relating to the formation of deep sea mining regulations. (Supplied: Louisa Castledine)
Calls for a moratorium
Phil McCabe has been one of the key figures pushing for a moratorium over the last five years under the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
"Anything that puts peace and security at risk just needs to be looked at really carefully," he said.
"We are much better off to take some time and gather the scientific knowledge and understanding that enables proper evidence based decisions around it."
But he said he is "completely bewildered" as to why Australia hasn't shown its support.
"There's no benefit to Australia from deep-sea mining going ahead in international waters, there's no commercial interest from Australian entities. If anything, opening up the deep sea and minerals that exist there could negatively impact Australia's economy," he said.
"The vast majority of Australia's strategic partners do support a moratorium … so we just really don't understand why Australia is sitting on their hands on this issue."
DFAT told ABC News that Australia participates in the negotiations surrounding a framework that will govern deep-sea mining and recognises there are a range of views around the mining.
It added that Australia supports Pacific Island countries to manage their own ocean resources.
Samantha Climie has been making representations to the federal government on behalf of Look Down Action — a youth organisation rallying to stop deep-sea mining — and said Australia has an "important role to play".
"Australia very much positions itself as a leader in the Pacific and wants to support a lot of Pacific Island nations," she said.
"I was quite disappointed in Australia that we haven't really done anything."
Look Down Action advocate Samantha Climie wants to see a stronger stance from Australia on a moratorium. (Supplied: Samantha Climie)
Ms Climie said she has reached out to the government but hasn't received a response to date.
"I think it's really important and urgent that Australia does [join the call for a moratorium] in the lead up to the ISA's meeting in July."
From the middle of July, nations will gather in Jamaica to resume the ISA Council and Assembly Meetings to discuss developments on deep-sea mining and the moratorium.
As scientists and conservationists warn just how much is at stake, the US executive order means the race towards commercial mining has already started.
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