Deep-sea mining update

The Narwhal broke a story nearly a year ago, identifying the Canadian company, The Metals Company, planning to defy the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and commence mining the seabed on the authority of Donald Trump.  

First, the good news: they don’t yet have US permits and they’re losing money hand over fist. The collection vehicles, intended to operate 4 miles beneath the surface of the ocean, haven’t even been fully designed or built. And the US permitting process will include an Environmental Impact Statement and a public comment period. If it gets that far. 

The Metals Company has set its sights on the Clarion-Clipperton zone, a vast (4.5 million square kilometer) region of the high seas west of Mexico. It’s clearly under the governance of the ISA; and that body has said, ‘no permits until more science has been done’. While the mineral riches lying about in lumps of rock on the sea floor may seem like easy pickings, little is known about what lives along with those lumps. And the probability is that whatever vehicle is ultimately designed to do the picking-up of the lumps, it will also do considerable kicking-up of silt and sand from the ocean floor. That’s dangerous for creatures that filter water for food or oxygen. 

Scientists estimate that ninety per cent of the species in the Clarion-Clipperton are formally unnamed and undescribed by science. The expeditions that have studied the region have discovered between 5-6,000 new species and new evolutionary branches of deep-sea life. Scientifically, it’s a rich new frontier. Unfortunately, the bright orange dumpster fire burning to our south sees it as an economically rich new frontier. 

Even The Metals Company’s optimistic outlook says this endeavour won’t be permitted until the first quarter of 2027, so it seems a question whether the company can continue to bleed money for another year and still finance the contract it’s signed to develop the collection vehicles. In the meantime, Living Oceans joined with Mining Watch Canada and countless other groups to urge the Canadian government to take steps to prevent its corporate creation from flaunting international—and Canadian—law.