PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — A moratorium on deep-sea mining established by a group of Pacific island nations has struck a blow to the Solwara 1 project in Papua…
KAVIENG, Papua New Guinea — Papua New Guinea’s minister for mining confirmed in early August that a deep-sea mining company would once again be looking to mine the seafloor under…
KINGSTON, Jamaica — In November, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France was calling for an international ban on deep-sea mining, a proposed activity that has received much attention due to…
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Negotiations broke down at deep-sea mining meetings that recently took place in Jamaica, exposing deep rifts within the International Seabed Authority, the U.N.-associated body tasked with governing…
KINGSTON, Jamaica — On July 21, nations reached an agreement that will make it more difficult for deep-sea mining to start immediately in international waters, while not fully halting the…
Without oceans, no life on earth. The statement is clear. As we, parliamentarians from all around the world, write these words, States are meeting in Kingston for the International Seabed…
Deep-sea mining is facing growing opposition at a critical moment that could either enable the prospective industry to advance or halt it in its tracks. On July 10, the U.N.-associated…
The Norwegian government is pushing forward with plans to open its nearby ocean to deep-sea mining, despite opposition from scientists and environmentalists. On June 20, the government announced its intention…
National science academies from across Europe have become the latest group to announce their support for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, a proposed but disputed activity that would extract minerals…
On March 12, a team of scientists gathered in the control room of the RV Falkor (too), an oceanographic research vessel operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. They watched the…
Norway is moving forward with plans to mine its continental shelf to procure minerals critical for renewable energy technologies. However, some scientists, members of civil society and even industry leaders…
As meetings to oversee deep-sea mining on the high seas draw to a close, it remains unclear whether regulators will allow it to commence in the near future. At the…
The potentially imminent start of deep-sea mining in international waters could impact whales, dolphins and porpoises, particularly in terms of noise pollution, according to experts who say there needs to…
On Nov. 7, French President Emmanuel Macron announced at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, that France is calling for a complete ban on deep-sea mining. This marks…
On Sept. 14, the Hidden Gem — an industrial drill ship operated by a subsidiary of The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian deep-sea mining corporation — left its port in…
It starts with tiny deep-sea fragments — shark’s teeth or slivers of shell. Then, in a process thought to span millions of years, they get coated in layers of liquidized…
Delegates of the International Seabed Authority are currently meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, to negotiate a set of rules that would pave the way for a controversial activity: mining the seabed…
In late June, New Zealand parliamentarian and Māori activist Debbie Ngarewa-Packer boarded an international flight to begin a 40-hour journey to Lisbon to attend the U.N. Ocean Conference. At various…
LISBON — Should we mine the seabed, a part of the world rich in resources, but less mapped than the surface of the moon? A growing number of politicians, scientists…
Between 1869 and 1870, the H.M.S. Porcupine sailed into the North Atlantic Ocean and scraped a dredge along the seafloor. When the sailors pulled the dredge back to the surface,…
With a four-page letter, the Pacific island nation of Nauru pushed the world closer to a reality in which large-scale mining doesn’t just take place on land, but also in…
1. The ocean-climate nexus The presence of the ocean was felt more strongly than ever at this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 26), held Oct. 31 to Nov. 12…
On the morning of Dec. 10, 20 Greenpeace activists jumped onto inflatable boats and motored across the gray waters of an industrial port in Rotterdam, Netherlands. They stopped in front…
It’s not easy to try to describe how a dolphin experiences sound in the ocean, says Lindy Weilgart, a noise pollution expert at Dalhousie University in Canada. “We have terrestrial…
Pelenatita Kara travels regularly to the outer islands of Tonga, her low-lying Pacific Island home, to educate fishers and farmers about seabed mining. For many of the people she meets, seabed mining…
Conservationists have expressed hope that a New Zealand company whose bid to mine the seabed was blocked by the country’s highest court last month has little chance of winning approval.…
When Cindy Van Dover started working with Nautilus Minerals, a deep-sea mining company, she received hate mail from other marine scientists. Van Dover is a prolific deep-sea biologist, an oceanographer…
Today we take a look at some of the key outcomes of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress, a global gathering of governments, scientists, NGOs,…
MARSEILLE, France — Delegates at this year’s global conservation summit have voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion that calls for a moratorium on deep-sea mining and the reform of…
Conservationists are calling on electric car and technology companies to disassociate from deep-sea mining, an emerging industry that promises to procure the minerals necessary for battery storage applications, but that…
