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Famed Ocean Explorer Don Walsh (RIP) on Deep Sea Mining and the Fate of the Ocean [1]

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Date: 2023-11-14

On November 12 Capt. Don Walsh (USN ret.) died at the age of 92. As a Navy Lieutenant in 1960, he and Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard diving aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste became the first humans to reach the deepest point in the Ocean almost 7 miles down in the Pacific’s Challenger Deep.

In the following decades he would continued to push the boundaries of ocean science, policy, marine safety and exploration. I first interviewed Don in 2000. Last year he spoke on my organization’s podcast about his exploits but also his concerns about deep sea mining and other threats to the ocean whose depths he helped pioneer.

On Deep Sea Mining

I wholly agree with the people who hold a negative opinion of it right now. I mean on land we don't hesitate to do environmental impact studies before we undertake most major activities that will have an effect on the environment. And I don't understand why that's not considered to be the same rule when you're in the oceans. They haven't done that kind of work. And the International Seabed Authority, which is a UN agency located in Kingston, Jamaica, they kind of govern the allocation of mining sites and that sort of thing. I think that they're moving too quickly. They have not had the budgets they need to really invoke a full-grown environmental study program of various mining sites. The thing is, it is an activity that's going to disrupt where you're working. It doesn't differentiate between the ore, if you will, the material they bring up, and the things that live with that ore on the sea floor. You're going to scrape them up. And these are organisms, many of them taking thousands of years to populate an area. They're not going to repopulate quickly. It’ just like you would clear cut a forest. If you don't replant, then you get a lot of junk stuff moves in and grows because they're not competing anymore with the trees.

I think that there has to be a convincing amount of study being done and on types of potential mining sites. And it would be nice if it was site specific. In other words, you get a license to mine, it’s two steps, just like offshore petroleum. You get an exploration permit and you can go test an area to see if there's anything there. Just like you drill test wells in offshore oil and gas development, you get a lot of dry holes. So, you're not going to move a whole production operation into that area until you've done that exploratory drilling. And so exploratory mining, I think is okay. I would, before that, first of all, check out an area, is there anything there of value? That's called a resource, something of value. And it's a difference between a mineral and an ore, if you will. It's economically valuable. And so, I think that that's permissible because your impact on doing test mining is pretty minimal compared to full on scale commercial mining. So, I can support that, but I can't support awarding mining permissions, or licenses to areas that have not been carefully studied.

I think that with respect to ocean mining, the ISA needs to look in the mirror. I'm not saying they're invertebrate but they seem to be more governed by the users, the potential users [mining companies], than the overall consideration of the health of the oceans. And that's got to stop. Overall, I would hope that ISA would get some backbone and become truly independent and a steward, if you will, responsible for stewardship of these deep ocean resources.

On Industrial Overfishing

As to fisheries, that's just greed, isn't it? And it's gotten worse. And the only thing we don't need, in my view, in world fisheries, global fisheries, is better technology. Because right now they can vacuum up everything. And we know that some top species are under severe pressure, if not extinct. And, you've got these motherships, you get slavery at sea, they don't even need to go home. The Mothership brings out fuel and groceries to the catcher boats, picks up the fish catch, takes it back. And yes, there are ways of limiting this abuse. You know, the electronic beacon systems, they put AIS (Automated Information System trackers) on ships. They turn them off. And I think what you need to do is go for port sanctions that, okay, mothership, you better carry a lot of fuel because there's no port in the world that's going to refuel you. You've got to go back to your flag country. And then through our diplomacy, we lean hard on these flag states that have these basically pirate fishing boats because we're going to be in a lot of trouble.

On the Fate of the Ocean

If it's not that, then we can worry about the ocean becoming more acidic, so fewer fish are being produced by nature. So, there's a lot of competing things, and all is not good news. I'm wondering whether or not the world can really act in time to save a great deal of what's happening to the oceans. I mean, I remember talking about this with Jacques Cousteau many, many years ago, when he was first sounding the call that the oceans are dying. And I thought, well, that's good press and it's good for your visibility, kind of doing ‘the sky is falling’ sort of thing. But now I'm thinking he was just a real pioneer in seeing the trouble with the health of the oceans. Because everything I look at is not very positive. I can't see good news coming.

Well, I guess one piece of good news is that at one point the ocean was very limited to a small number of people. Where now I think the general population is getting information about the challenges and there's more engagement, more cross-collaboration, and the word is getting out. So having this precautionary principle (“do no harm”), which you're talking about for deep ocean mining, and being aware of how nations can actually work with their communities to solve these problems, I think is a little bit of good news, yeah.

David Helvarg is an author, writer, Executive Director of Blue Frontier, an ocean policy group and co-host of Rising Tide – The Ocean Podcast.

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