The proposal of seabed mining has been met with resistance from Indigenous communities and environmental groups in Aotearoa and the Cook Islands.
Ngāti Ruanui and Greenpeace Aotearoa travelled to Australia to disrupt an AGM of a mining company seeking to fast-track seabed mining in Taranaki.
Mining companies are in search of polymetallic nodules. These potato-shaped rocks contain metals like nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese which are argued to be crucial for energy security and technology.
Te Moana Nui a Kiwa has the highest concentration of these metals and the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific has been allocated as the mining zone.
The CCZ is halfway between Hawaii and Mexico and is administered by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) which has allocated contracts to companies sponsored by countries including Kiribati, the Cook Islands, Tonga and Nauru.
Akeina Tairea of Te Ipukarea Society (TIS) told Te Ao Māori News the PM’s strong stance for seabed mining does not represent the people of the Cook Islands.
Tairea is a rangatahi from the island Moke and is a project officer at TIS which is a non-government conservation organisation in Rarotonga which focuses on waste management, eco-sustainable development, climate change, youth and biodiversity.
Governments not representing the people
Cook Islands PM Mark Brown is one of the main political figures in favour of mining and was recently in Aotearoa with the Seabed Minerals Authority (SMA).
The government agency came to Aotearoa to speak to the Cook Islands diaspora about “sustainable development” including the progress in the seabed mining sector.
Tairea said these presentations by the SMA in Aotearoa caused a dispute on Facebook because of a slide which said Te Ipukarea Society (TIS), Kōrero o te Ōrau and Cook Islands Voyaging Society were key stakeholders.
These organisations didn’t consent to having their logos used and believed it inaccurately implied their support.
The Seabed Minerals Authority argued they didn’t explicitly say they were supporters and amended the slides but Tairea said they weren’t sure how many consultations had already happened.
She said it’s been a rollercoaster because although they had pushed for further research and the government said they would do so before agreeing to mine - Te Ipukarea Society later found out they were already in the process of developing seabed mining licenses.
She said while there is still confusion around what seabed mining is and means, many people in the country don’t want it in their waters.
A TIS campaign is providing open consultations to inform, along with school programs to help people form their own opinions on seabed mining.
Tairea’s main concern is uncertainty; mining is a short-term money maker, and the extent of potential long-term damage to the environment is unclear.
She said it would also open the borders to greater foreign influence in the mining business who she says, based on her experience, generally aren’t conscious of locals' needs or safety.
The mining site named Marae Moana
The area in the Cook Islands they plan to mine is in the multi-use marine park called Marae Moana.
Marae Moana extends over the entire Exclusive Economic Zone of the Cook Islands.
“It was originally advertised as a conservation area. They called it Marae Moana, a sacred place where our chiefs would meet and where life can flourish in the ocean. But now with seabed mining they’re disturbing the integrity of the name,” Tairea said.
“It’s insulting in my opinion because a marae is a sacred place and now its being spun as a harvesting area.”
How does seabed mining work?
To understand the process and impacts of deep-sea mining we spoke to Hēmi Hita (Ngāti Whātua), the communications and advocacy coordinator for the Deep Sea Mining campaign - deep sea mining being seabed mining in the deep sea.
Hita said it involves remote-operated vehicles which dredge the seabed “essentially bulldozing and vacuuming the seabed” to collect nodules.
Hita said the machines “suck up” the seabed, the sediment and nodules are processed to extract the metals and the waste products are discharged back into the ocean.
Due to the high pressure in the ocean, they cannot pump it directly to the seabed. They dump the waste higher in the sea column, but it doesn’t settle right away, instead leaving a sediment cloud and plume of pollution.
The pollution cloud blocks sunlight from organisms which need light for photosynthesis to live which then impacts the creatures which eat those organisms.
Research shows no sign of recovery in testing zones
Te Ipukarea Society have advocated for more research and Hita spoke about some research already done.
50 years have passed since the first deep sea mining site at the Blake Plateau off the coast of South Carolina in 1970.
Today, you can still see the machine tracks and there has been no sign of recovery or life in the area.
Hita said the mining companies like to call the deep sea the abyssal plains to give the picture of it being a region devoid of life but he says this is untrue.
The deep sea is a delicate ecosystem home to animals, microfauna and microorganisms.
The nodules are used as grounding zones for Octopi who attach themselves to them as they collect food because the sediment surrounding them is too soft.
Biodiversity loss, ecosystems disrupted and food insecurity
Hita said this could lead to severe biodiversity loss and disruption of ecosystems.
“Some of the nodules that we’ve seen across the Pacific have shown to be partially radioactive so there’s the potential impact of introducing radioactive particles into the food chain,”
He said while deep-sea mining claims to combat the climate crisis and provide energy security, it could exacerbate the climate crisis as the ocean is a carbon sink which absorbs carbon from the atmosphere but mining would release the CO2 stored in the sediment.
This would also mean the acidification of the ocean which would eat away at minerals animals use to build shells and overall impact food security of Pacific nations who rely on kaimoana as a primary food source.
Neocolonialism the biggest social concern
While there are lots of social concerns such as food security or jeopardising the Indigenous spiritual and cultural connections to the ocean, Hita said the biggest concern for him is the idea of neocolonialism.
Neocolonialism is the use of economic, political or cultural pressures to control or influence countries, especially former dependencies.
Hita said historically colonialism was extractive and colonial forces came to the Pacific, mined resources, logged forests. The only difference he said is now instead of force, a lot of the time companies buy the support through development.
“By funding clean ups, housing and education programmes, scholarships, they buy a social license to do things such as seabed mining.”
Tairea said in the Cook Islands the economic pressures and desperation for money make them vulnerable to corporate exploitation.
She said churches and organisations have been financially incentivised by the deep sea mining industry to support through donations
Tairea said she went to a talk by the National Environment Service, a government agency in the Cook Islands which explained how international companies move into islands and start supporting youth, church, women’s, art or education groups.
She said they donate a “good chunk of money” to gain trust or make people feel like they must support their business.
“Money is a very important thing here and just being able to afford to live here, the cost of living is just getting more and more expensive. Some people believe they don’t really have a choice, but we do.”
