"Is it too late to halt deep-sea mining? Meet the activists trying to save the seabed - If mining companies are given the go-ahead to exploit the ocean depths, the environmental cost will be devastating. As the clock ticks down to a crucial deadline in July, Michael Segalov (Guardian) reports"

"For almost 30 years, much of what went on at the secretive-sounding International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Jamaica was unreported and scarcely noticed ... There have been allegations of secrecy and interference against its governing body and of legal loopholes being exploited. After discussions chugged along quietly for decades, a growing community of campaigners, scientists and now governments are raising an urgent alarm about what’s happening within these walls. They argue that unless immediate action is taken, it might be too late to halt the devastating environmental and ecological impact of mining the global high seas. Their warning is simple: humanity’s insatiable appetite to plunder the planet for profit might mean some of the Earth’s most untouched corners are exploited before we even understand what it is we risk losing. As Louisa Casson, who is leading Greenpeace’s global campaign to stop deep-sea mining, puts it: “It’s a threat, continental in scale, that until recently nobody was even talking about ...
Regardless, due to a quirk in an ageing international treaty, deep-sea mining might happen in a matter of months after the pulling of a legal lever by a Canadian-owned company and the government of Nauru."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/21/is-it-too-late-to-halt-deep-sea-mining-the-activists-trying-to-save-the-seabed

#Seabed #SeabedMining #UnderseaMining #Mining #Oceans #Environment #Greenpeace #Aotearoa #NewZealand #Capitalism #Profit #Environmental #Jamaica #ISA #Earth #Minerals #Chile #CostaRica #Ecuador #Spain #France #Canada #Nauru