Source: gulfnews.com
Author: Suzanne Goldenberg
This is the last frontier: the ocean floor, 4,000 metres beneath the waters of the central Pacific, where mining companies are now exploring for the rich deposits of ores needed to keep industry humming and smartphones switched on.
Source: The Guardian Observer
Author: Suzanne Goldenberg
This is the last frontier: the ocean floor, 4,000 metres beneath the waters of the central Pacific, where mining companies are now exploring for the rich deposits of ores needed to keep industry humming and smartphones switched on.
Continue reading Marine mining: Underwater gold rush sparks fears of ocean catastrophe
Source: Huff Post Green
Author: Sophie Cocke
HONOLULU — Last summer, a team of Japanese scientists boarded the University of Hawaii’s Kaimikai O Kanaloa, a 223-foot, high-tech research ship docked in Honolulu Harbor, and headed out to sea. Their mission was to explore whether they will be able to tap into billions of dollars worth of coveted minerals that are believed to sit 5,000 meters beneath the sea in an area that runs from about 500 miles southeast of Hawaii toward Mexico. Japan is one of more than a dozen countries angling to profit off the vast mineral deposits that span 6 million square kilometers — an area the size of the United States — in what’s known as the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone.
Continue reading Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone: The New Mineral Rush
Source: Deep Sea Mining Campaign
Civil society groups across the Pacific criticise SOPAC and its development of a regional regulatory framework on deep sea mining (DSM). They argue that it facilitates and pre-empts DSM before Pacific Island communities have had the opportunity to debate whether this is a form of development they want.
Continue reading Deep Sea Mining is not the answer to poverty alleviation for the Pacific
Source: National Geographic
Author: Michael Lodge
The sea floor is as crucial to human flourishing as the earth’s surface, and as in need of careful stewardship. Just like the terrestrial environment, it is made up of mountain ranges, plateaus, volcanic peaks, canyons and vast plains. It contains most of the same minerals we find on land, often in enriched forms, as well as mineral formations that are unique to the deep ocean such as ferromanganese crusts and manganese nodules.
Continue reading New interest in seafloor mining revives calls for conservation
Source: Foreign Affairs
Author: Alan B. Sielen
Of all the threats looming over the planet today, one of the most alarming is the seemingly inexorable descent of the world’s oceans into ecological perdition. Over the last several decades, human activities have so altered the basic chemistry of the seas that they are now experiencing evolution in reverse: a return to the barren primeval waters of hundreds of millions of years ago.
Continue reading The devolution of the seas: the consequences of oceanic destruction
Source: New Zealand Herald
Author: Andrew Stone
The rough seas of the southern Pacific Ocean are set to be the focus of resource consent debate as a mining company’s bid to dredge the sea floor comes up against the fishing industry and environmentalists.
Source: Otago Daily Times
Author: Simon Hartley
Seabed phosphate explorer Chatham Rock Phosphate has raised a disappointing $1.58 million in its long-postponed initial public offering, having sought between $4 million and $10 million.
Continue reading NZ: Prospective seabed miner fails to raise funds
Source: Greenpeace International
A new report from Greenpeace International has found that the potential impact of deep sea mining is not properly understood. Mining could devastate biodiversity hotspots and endanger deep sea organisms as sediment waste and pollution from toxic heavy metals are discharged. This comes as only 3% of the world’s oceans and less than 1% of the high seas are protected, making them among the most environmentally vulnerable places on Earth.
Continue reading New report from Greenpeace International: Deep sea mining high risk
Source: Huff Post, TED Weekends
Author: Richard Steiner
It may be understandable that a terrestrial primate such as ourselves would pay little attention to a world so foreign, inaccessible, and inhospitable as the deep sea, but with growing threats to the region, it’s time we do so.
Continue reading Protecting Earth’s Final Frontier — The Deep Sea
