December 2020 · Volume 5, Issue 8

Ocean stakeholders discuss calls for moratorium on deep-sea mining.

Featured image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2019 Southeastern U.S. Deep-sea Exploration.

By Maria Bolevich for DSM Observer

This fall saw an unprecedented emphasis on calls for moratoria on deep-sea mining. Several national deliberative bodies entertained discussions on supporting a moratorium, including within some contractor sponsoring states, while a public campaign, initiated by environmental NGOs who received a boost from public statements made by Sir David Attenborough, worked its way through popular media.

Last month, Greenpeace released a new report, detailing the opaque process currently underway at the ISA to complete the 26th Session, review and approve new exploration leases, and advance progress on the mining code while contending with the logistical hurdles the current pandemic presents. “Deep sea mining would open a whole new frontier of resource exploitation, at the heart of the largest ecosystem on Earth,” says Louisa Casson, Senior Political Strategist at Greenpeace International, who explains that they are not calling for a time-bound moratorium, but a permanent ban on deep-sea mining. “A moratorium is an important policy tool that could help to ensure the deep ocean remains off-limits to the mining industry.”

From the Editor: The Slow Year

With an ambitious goal to complete the draft mining code, numerous technical and sea trials scheduled, and several major research campaigns planned, 2020 was poised to be the pivotal year for deep-sea mining. For obvious reasons, that vision didn’t quite pan out as intended. Rather than being a groundbreaking year for industry progress, it has been a year of adaptation, as stakeholders, regulators, and contractors transitioned to remote work, dealt with economic and social upheaval, and rebalanced their priorities in light of pandemic-slowed progress.

Even with these new challenges, significant progress has been made to advance the industry. The International Seabed Authority managed the transition to remote meetings, with mixed results. Workshops to discuss regional environmental management plans were held for both the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Northwest Pacific. The 26th Session was concluded via silent procedure. And a Jamaican contractor became the first Caribbean company to secure a mining exploration lease.

With multiple vaccines approved for distribution, and an end to the pandemic on the horizon, stakeholders can begin looking towards summer 2021 and the second part of the 27th Session of the International Seabed Authority as the pivotal meeting that will set the course for the next decade of deep-sea mining development.

The Deep-sea Mining Observer is committed to providing news and analyses as the industry progresses. To help fulfill that goal and meet the needs of our audience, we have a short reader survey that we would encourage you to complete. We will also be reviving our jobs section in the new year, so if you have any upcoming openings, please let us know so that we can circulate the call for applicants.

Urban mining and mineral recycling: State of the art

Featured image: Electronic waste at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Photo by Muntaka Chasant.

Sergio Cambronero for DSM Observer

The energetic transition to a low-carbon future is boosting the market for renewable energies, and this is increasing the demand for minerals. Consequently, with a renewed push for sustainable development and environmental protection, these minerals will have to come from sources that do not affect vulnerable ecosystems.

Society has generally overlooked the value of recovering metals from discarded products. Inefficiency in this aspect has increased our reliance on primary resources and the subsequent pollution by hazardous materials. Recycling is an essential aspect of circular economies and sustainable development, but its adoption in the mining sector has not been comprehensive. Although many experts indicate that recycled minerals alone cannot sustain global demand by 2050, they all agree on the fact that recycling could play an increased role in meeting demand to supply a low-carbon transition while reducing disturbance to natural ecosystems.

A massive “gold mine” ready to be exploited is found in society’s electronic garbage or “e-waste”. Most electrical products are composed of valuable elements such as gold, nickel, cobalt and rare earth metals. Some common devices are composed of 30-50 elements, many of them recoverable. In 2019, the world generated 53.6 millions tons of e-waste, the equivalent to almost 150 Empire State buildings. The potential value of recycled minerals on this amount of garbage was estimated by experts at more than 70 billion USD.

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Commentary: COVID-19 and the (ab)use of the silence procedure at the International Seabed Authority

By Pradeep A. Singh for the DSM Observer

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the scheduled July 2020 session of the Legal and Technical Commission, the Council and the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) could not take place in-person in Kingston, Jamaica. While meetings of the Legal and Technical Commission carried on in a virtual format, it was initially decided that the 26th Session of the ISA would be postponed to October 2020 and conducted in a reduced format.

Not long after, it became clear that an in-person meeting in October would also not be possible, resulting in a tentative postponement to early December. Nevertheless, it was thought to be necessary to get the wheels moving already in September. With that in mind, the Acting President of the Council issued a letter proposing the early resumption of the 26th Session of the ISA to enable the Council “to take certain decisions of a procedural nature that are usually addressed without a debate” via the use of the “silence procedure”. The justification for the use of this procedure was to give “priority to the most urgent and time-sensitive items on the agenda of the session requiring decisions before the end of the year”. Shortly after that, the President of the Assembly (25th Session) issued a letter proposing a similar arrangement for the Assembly.

Deep-sea Mining in the News

The unseen man-made 'tracks' on the deep ocean floor

(Richard Fisher for the BBC) At the base of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from land, there are some curious marks on the seafloor that no animal could have made. Some of them look like narrow troughs carved into the pale silt. Others could be claw marks, gouged through the ecosystems of the deep by an undersea monster.

Read the full article: The unseen man-made 'tracks' on the deep ocean floor

(The Guardian) Deep-sea ‘gold rush’: secretive plans to carve up the seabed decried
(Smithsonian Magazine) The Top Ten Ocean Stories of 2020
(S & P Global) Jamaican government ramps up plans for deep-sea metals exploration
(Science Alert) Massive Swarm of Eels Is The Most Fish Ever Recorded at The Bottom of The Ocean
(New Statesman) Why deep-sea mining is risky for everyone

Book Review: Natural Capital and Exploitation of the Deep Ocean

There are only a handful of textbooks that cover the ecology and geology of the deep oceans, and even fewer that directly address the value of deep wild places. Natural Capital and Exploitation of the Deep Ocean is the first text to attempt a comprehensive exploration of the diverse issues raised by human exploitation in the deep sea. Covering both biological exploitation in the form of fisheries and genetic and scientific resources, as well as abiotic exploitation in the form of mineral and energy extraction, and the often overlooked but equally important use of the deep ocean as space for waste disposal, submerged telecommunication cables, and other services, this relatively slim book draws upon a large cohort of experts to integrate these topics.