Currently, there are a range of mining operations in the shallow seabed, including diamond mining in Namibia and Tin mining in Indonesia. Due to rising demand for minerals and metals and declining land-based resources, there has been a recent surge of interest in exploration of both shallow and deep sea resources. However, there are environmental concerns with mining the seabed. Only a fraction of the deep sea has been scientifically studied to date and there have been no commercial scale mining trials so far. Nonetheless, given the nature, scale and locations of proposed seabed mining activities serious and, in some cases, widespread negative impacts on habitats and marine life can reasonably be expected.
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