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Global calls to protect our oceans intensify [1]

['Environment Correspondent']

Date: 2024-07-15

From July 15 until August 2, nations from around the world will gather for the International Seabed Authority’s (ISA) pivotal Council and Assembly meetings. Amid escalating global opposition to the deep-sea mining industry, concerns about the ISA’s role as a regulatory body, and the glaring absence of scientific understanding, a minority of states and mining companies are still pushing forward to unleash this highly destructive and unnecessary activity in our ocean.

The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) will be on the ground in Jamaica for the 3-week meeting, urging governments to prioritise the protection of our ocean, reject harmful business practices, and support a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep-sea mining before irreversible damage is done.

As the Council meeting begins, momentum for a moratorium has reached an unprecedented high worldwide. Twenty-seven countries are now calling for a moratorium, precautionary pause or ban on the industry in international waters, with Greece and Peru being the latest countries to join the opposition.

DSCC Deep-Sea Mining Moratorium Campaign Lead, Sofia Tsenikli said that “gouging minerals from the seafloor poses an existential threat that goes far beyond the immediate destruction of deep-sea wildlife and habitats. The deep ocean sustains crucial processes that make the entire planet habitable, from driving ocean currents that regulate our weather to storing carbon and buffering our planet against the impacts of climate change. States must now protect the ocean and not allow any more damage”.

The divergence of viewpoints on the future of deep-sea mining has only grown at the ISA Council. During the two-week Council meeting, States will continue to debate a controversial Mining Code plagued with regulatory gaps and omissions, which cannot be resolved in the foreseeable future due to massive gaps in scientific knowledge and understanding of the deep sea.

DSCC Policy Officer Emma Wilson said that “adopting a Mining Code any time in the next few years would prompt companies and countries to begin applying for mining licenses from the ISA and risk triggering an unstoppable resource grab in our deep sea - and all for highly uncertain benefits. The best scientific information to date is pointing to permanent, irreversible damage to ecosystems and species if deep-sea mining is permitted. The risks are high for the eastern Pacific Ocean, where current mining interests are centred”.

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Meanwhile, The Metals Company (TMC) continues to disregard all scientific and economic warnings about the industry’s risks. In doing so, TMC has indicated their plans to use an obscure legal loophole to apply to begin commercial mining operations later this year, attempting to force the world to accept a choice between a faulty mining code or unregulated mining.

Following the Council meeting, the Assembly, as the supreme organ of the ISA, will meet for a week with a packed agenda. A group of nine states have put on the agenda a discussion for a general policy on the protection of the marine environment, in response to the growing regulatory and environmental concerns surrounding deep-sea mining. Last year, a similar discussion was blocked by a small number of states.

DSCC international Legal Adviser Duncan Currie said that “a discussion on the protection of the marine environment at the ISA Assembly is long overdue and must be supported by all states. A general policy could establish the necessary conditions to be fulfilled before deep-sea mining is even considered, ensuring that scientific gaps are filled, biodiversity is protected, states’ international environmental obligations are met, indigenous peoples’ rights are respected and the ISA operates with good governance, adhering to the precautionary principle”.

At the same time, trust in the ISA as an institution responsible for the management of the common heritage of humankind has eroded drastically. The Assembly of the ISA is currently two years behind in meeting its legal obligation to conduct a periodic and systematic review of the operations of the organisation to ensure transparent, accountable, inclusive, and responsible operations - values that several States have insisted are critical to meeting the ISA’s obligation to act ‘on behalf of all humankind’.

The DSCC’s co-founder Matthew Gianni emphasised that “with the ISA poised to make major decisions over the next several years that will have long-term implications for the health of the ocean, there is an urgent need for ISA Member States to look into these allegations as well as conduct a systematic, open, transparent and inclusive review of the many other concerns over how the organization is run. It is clear that as it stands, the ISA is ill-equipped and lacks the scientific knowledge and regulatory oversight to act as an effective protector of the deep sea, much less to regulate a risky and complex industry. We need a moratorium on deep-sea mining until these and many other issues can be addressed and resolved”.

The DSCC is made up of over 115 non-government organisations, fishers' organisations and law and policy institutes working together to protect vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems. It aims to substantially reduce the greatest threats to life in the deep sea and to safeguard the long-term health, integrity and resilience of deep-sea ecosystems.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is the UN-affiliated intergovernmental body charged both with regulating any deep-sea mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction and with ensuring the effective protection of the marine environment.

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[1] Url: https://www.eureporter.co/world/2024/07/15/global-calls-to-protect-our-oceans-intensify/

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