Deep Sea Mining: Time for a leadership change

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The big topic in the ocean today is deep sea mining.

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And at the head of it is the leadership of the International Seabed

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Authority, the ISA. And there's been somebody who's

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been in charge for quite some time who's been quite controversial

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in many circles. So is it time for a

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leadership change that will take deep sea mining into the direction where

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most people want it to go? and that is stay at

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a moratorium. We're gonna find out on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean

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podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody,

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welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. This

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is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up

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for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking

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action. And on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about deep

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sea mining. This is something that, it's a topic that we've been

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talking about for quite some time here on the podcast, it's been in

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the news, and the reason why it's been in the news is there was a recent meeting,

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a summer meeting of the International Seabed Authority in Kingston,

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Jamaica, occurred in July, and there were

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some developments, some good developments that we've seen, and

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probably some not so good developments that we've seen. The big development was

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that we saw more and more people, or more and more countries,

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add their voice to saying no to deep sea mining. So currently, there's

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just different categories for that. So currently the moratorium

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and the alliance is Palau, Fiji, Samoa,

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and the federal states of Micronesia. The precautionary

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pause are countries including Chile,

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Costa Rica, Ecuador, Spain, Germany, Panama, Vanuatu,

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Dominican Republic, Sweden, Ireland, Brazil, Finland,

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Portugal, Monaco, Kingdom of Denmark, Greece,

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Malta, Honduras, Tuvalu, Guatemala,

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and Austria. And then the moratorium is

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New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, UK. Mexico

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and Peru and then a fall all-out ban is

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France So 32 countries say no in one

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way or another to deep-sea mining now. We have seen some

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countries increase their Interest and

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increase their action towards deep-sea mining. We've

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seen Norway increase. There's Denmark I believe they started

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to explore they want to do some more quote-unquote research

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and it's it's a really interesting thing that's happening because

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This often happens, we have the International Seabed Authority, which

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is there to have essentially two functions, right?

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It's to, you know, basically it

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has two mandates. So it's to authorize and control mining,

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as well as for the common heritage of

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all mankind, and to protect the marine environment from

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harmful impacts. that's really interesting those

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are two almost a what people can argue opposing men

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mandates don't

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really fit and it reminds me of here

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in canada where i live out in bc and

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even just uh... federally the department of fisheries and

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oceans or fisheries notions canada and i think it's climate change

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a coast guard i think so i forget what the names are now But Fisheries

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and Oceans, DFO, essentially in Canada, the federal government, has

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the mandate for aquaculture to promote aquaculture, but also

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to keep the marine environment healthy. Those

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are two mandates that some could argue don't really go

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hand in hand. Others can argue that it does. But where the

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controversy came in Canada was that when it was supposed to

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be testing for diseases within aquaculture facilities,

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it presented studies that said, no, we don't think that

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these studies are saying that there's a

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significant problem with parasites and

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diseases and viruses within the aquaculture fish

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population to the point where it's affecting the wild salmon populations.

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OK, well, sure, DFO does some great work.

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There's no doubt about it. I used to work for DFO. I know firsthand some

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of the studies that they've done across the

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country have been fantastic. But how can you present

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a study that's from the government, not necessarily in all

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the time that are in primary journals, and

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you put out a technical report uh... saying you

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know something that that you know your mandate kind of goes

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against you try to protect the environment but also try to promote aquaculture and

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this is controversial just as i'm saying this i can hear the arguments

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happen was dfo their scientists they present the

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science is up to you know that the policy makers to do

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the interpretation and i get that But just in

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the eyes of the public, the eyes of conservationists, the

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eyes of people who are involved in aquaculture, they have very different

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approaches and outlooks on these two what

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seems to be opposing mandates. And it's the same thing

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with the International Seabed Authority, the ISA. When

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you have a mandate to, one, to authorize and

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control mining for the common heritage of all mankind, and

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to protect marine environment from harmful impacts. Now, you

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know, looking at that first mandate, you're looking at, hey, look, our

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planet's in the crapper. We have greenhouse gases, we have climate change. We

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need to do something to change it. A lot of significant portion of

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greenhouse gases is produced not only by the fossil fuel industry, but also by

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gas powered vehicles, right? And so when you have gas powered

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vehicles, you're always emitting some sort of greenhouse gas,

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whether it be methane, whether it be carbon dioxide, whether it be something else that

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contributes to climate change. So the more cars, the more gas powered vehicles

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we have on the road, the more

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we have climate change. As long as we keep selling gas-powered cars, we're

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not going to clean up the planet from these CO2 and

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methane gases from leaking out into the environment and

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contributing more to climate change. But if we put in electric vehicles,

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there's no emissions in the actual vehicle itself. One

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can argue that there is in the making of the battery and so forth. But

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when you look at the overall, when you compare the gas-powered vehicle to

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the electric vehicle, you're looking at overall, there's no emissions

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when you actually use the vehicle, of an electric vehicle. And

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so there's a benefit there. You're taking away the greenhouse gases that

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are contributing to climate change when you're driving

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and the actual act of driving an electric vehicle. So

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it's better. Now here's the problem, to make the batteries that are

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now the batteries, you need specific metals, cobalt,

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nickel, manganese, and so forth. You can find those

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in mines on land, but there are serious problems with

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the mines, where they are, how they're being run,

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the human rights violations that are happening there, so there's a

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lot of pressure to get the metals from elsewhere. And

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there's metals in these small little nodules I talked about

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last episode, which if you haven't seen it or you haven't listened to

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it, go back to the app after this episode, go back to the last episode. You

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can take a look about talking about dark oxygen, how these

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nodules produce potentially oxygen or help produce oxygen

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in the deep sea. here we're in a situation where it's like hey

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there are these nodules that have these metals that can be easily mined or

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not easily but mined in the deep sea we need to take it

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we know we need to take these metals and produce those metals so

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that we can make these batteries here are the couple problems with

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that one we don't know the damage we're going to do to

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deep sea right deep sea mining it's not going to be

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easy it's not going to be it's something with the deep sea we don't really understand

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and i take you back to the deep sea horizon the leak that happened there

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how detrimental it was to the gulf of mexico and to the people other

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people who use the gulf of mexico for fishing for tourism

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and so forth how bad that was and how bad it still is

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in in some terms to the poisoning of the environment

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and the water quality and the still the ramifications that we're paying the

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consequences that we're paying for it as we speak and that's been what 10 20 or

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10 to 15 years almost since it happened uh so it's

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it's a problem right we need to ensure that we are

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we understand the deep sea better before we start messing around with

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it and especially now with this dark oxygen thing

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that we've we've discovered and need more research on

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is there is actual oxygen being produced in the

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deep sea in the dark And it's really thought

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to be done by these nodules, because they increase the voltage that

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allows the separation of oxygen from

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water. So there's more oxygen in the deep sea than we originally

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thought. We thought that it would be decreasing, but it's actually increasing in some spots.

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And then the biodiversity increases in those spots. So more research needs to

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be done there. So we'd almost say, hey, this moratorium or this precautionary pause

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that some of these countries are looking for, that might be a good idea at

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this point. The ISA continues to

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push so that we start to explore and start to do more

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quote unquote research to see, hey, is this actually viable? Can

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we take out enough nodules and will it be profitable for

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those companies to actually do it? Now, with that said,

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with this push for these for these mandates, for

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these two mandates, one authorized and control mining for

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the common good, a common heritage of all mankind. and to

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protect the marine environment from harmful impacts, is really run

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by this ISA, but really run by the leader of this

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ISA. And for the longest time, the

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leader has been a British lawyer. I'm looking

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at the article for his name. It's Lodge. I'm

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trying to see what his full name is. and

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And so there's a battle for this leadership. And the reason why

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is that a lot of people have said that trust is

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broken and leadership is missing. And this is Leticia Carvalho,

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who is sponsored by the Brazilian government. And

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she's here to say, hey, I'm running for the leadership for this because the trust is

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broken and leadership is missing. uh... later than

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this is the you know what the i say they're gonna be voting for this uh...

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for this leader uh... who's gonna be it's gonna be facing critical

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votes that could impact the nascent industry for years

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to come so who will be the next leader So,

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you know, right now the battle for leadership might be, you

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know, might sound like it to the average person, like, you know,

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a remote technical concern, but the election of the

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authority secretary, according to this article in the Guardian, General, comes

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at a pivotal moment

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for the deep sea mining and therefore the future of the world's oceans. The

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cause for pause on exploitation of the seabed

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are intensifying. What

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happens in the movies when you don't listen to scientists? Bad

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stuff happens. And we're already seeing it in real life with climate

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change. When scientists were talking about 30, 40 years ago, 50 years

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ago, now we're not listening. And look

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at the situation we're in now. We're now considering deep sea mining to help with

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climate change, which could further destroy the planet or hurt the planet.

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Now, the ISA, just to give a little background, is governed by 168 member states plus the

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European Union. So

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it has those two mandates, and so during Lodge's

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eight year tenure, he has been accused of

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closeness to the mining industry, overstepping his neutral

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role, and of presiding over an authority that

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lacks transparency. And so a New York Times piece

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published earlier this month also accused him of pushing countries to accelerate

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the start of deep sea mining. Of course, he denies those claims.

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Now, Cavallo, a Brazilian oceanographer and

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international diplomat, says it is time For

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meaningful transformation at the Seabed Authority, the current deep divide

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of views among the state parties in the Council

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is heavily due to the lack of trust and leadership on top of whatever

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scientific gaps we may have or asymmetry of

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knowledge between the members. the problem. not

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mad at, to say, hey, look, there are some serious concerns that some

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very smart people and accomplished people are considering. And

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there's also the mining companies who are like, hey, we need to get on this right

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now. We've invested a ton of money into exploring the

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deep sea to get deep sea mining. We wanna make sure

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that we can mine at some point soon because time

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is money at this point. And they wanna get into production as soon

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as possible. So, so far, you

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know, in terms of contracts, the authority has issued 31 exploration

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contracts sponsored by 14 nations in an area covering

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about 1.5 square kilometers of the world's seabed,

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mostly in the equatorial Pacific between Hawaii and

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Mexico. And these also, these areas, just

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to let you know, have been explored in some cases in

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certain areas, and they're very, very, very

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diverse when you're looking at the actual seabed.

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They're very diverse in animals. These contracts with

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countries including China, Russia, South Korea, India,

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Britain, France, Poland, Brazil, Japan, Jamaica, and

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Belgium allow exploration of the seabed but not commercial mining,

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so just exploration. No exploitation contracts

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which would permit mining to go ahead have been issued yet, but

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efforts by industry in some states have accelerated the

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race to mine. So there are some people who are trying to get ahead and

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seeing what they can do. One firm called the

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Metals Company, TMC, based in Canada, I'm not

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happy about that. And partnered with the Pacific states of Nauru and

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Tonga and Kiribati has said it will apply for

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permission to mine later this year before

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rules and regulations are likely to be in place. Now, here's the problem right

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there in that sentence. Before rules and regulations are in place, they

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want to mine for commercial purposes. right before

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the rules and regulations are in place. This is the problem when we start to move

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forward on something that's developed. It takes time to understand the

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environment that you're going to exploit. Essentially,

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you're going to be digging up on the surface or

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the seabed, and you're going to be moving things around. We

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need to know what the effects are going to be in that. And I

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just don't know if we're going to be able to find out enough information before this goes. And now

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they want to move before the rules and regulations are in place? That

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seems a little bit presumptive there. I just don't like

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the fact that this is something that, you know... we need

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to go. So Cavallo, who's running for this leadership, claims it is

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Lodge's alleged close relationship with the company that

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is the problem. Trust she claims

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began to ebb away in 2018 after

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the Secretary General appeared in a video wearing a hard hat with

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the Deep Green logo on it. Deep Green is the

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former name of the metals company. What is intriguing is

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the leadership of multilateral of

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a multilateral organization embracing one company's demands, pushing

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it into the ISA's council's process to develop mining

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code," she says. So that's the problem, right? So you're having this leader

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who's like, seems to be pushing what's being said by this company saying,

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hey, look, this is what we need to do, but we don't even have rules and regulations

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yet. We don't even understand what the problem is. We haven't even explored the

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deep sea to the point where we know what's gonna happen. I mean, we just

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found out about dark oxygen. We just found out about it. I

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can't tell you enough how big this discovery

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is, how big it is to the deep sea and our

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understanding of the animals that are into the deep sea. At this point, we

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were looking at hydrothermal vents and how animals are surviving in

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really high temperatures and under sulfur conditions, sulfuric acid

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conditions. It's crazy to see that happening. Now we

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know we have areas where there's pockets of increased oxygen. It's

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insane. So she goes on to say, Cavalli goes on to say, there

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is a problem with being seen to be too close to a company that is

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driven by results for its investors. Again,

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see that conflict of interest. ISA is a regulatory body with

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a dual mandate, determining the rules and procedures for deep sea mining while

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protecting the deep sea ecosystems. That means you would think that

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there is a precautionary approach that needs to be taken, right? A

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precautionary approach. But that doesn't seem to be happening. It

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seems like we are continuing to move forward without

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saying, hey, look, this is not really good.

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We need to make sure that we're not just

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doing it for investors. We're doing this to protect the ocean. This is going to

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have much more consequences to the

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world than it is for these investors. So I think it's really

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important now Cavallo has worked in the as a regulator in

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the Brazil's oil industry Which is really interesting and she

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believes the rules governing deep-sea mining will take time and that

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no mining application should be approved before

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they are Complicated before they're completed now look I'm

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biased already, but I like Cavallo. I like the fact

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that she's taking a precautionary approach. I hope she gets

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put into power because this is gonna be something that

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will be needed, right? And we know Kiribati

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is backing Lodge in getting the leadership again.

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And we know Kiribati is one of the countries that wants to start mining.

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So right then and there, there's a problem. Right.

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So you're backed by this country, but they want to

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start commercial mining. You have been accused of being too

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close to mining companies wearing their hard hats in videos saying,

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hey, we need to start deep sea mining. But you're also moving

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forward with some of the things are trying to push and accelerate deep

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sea mining aspiration and commercial deep sea mining. I'm

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sure what goes along with that. without even

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having rules and regulations in place. This makes no sense whatsoever.

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And just judging based on what's happened in the past in terms

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of how the meetings have gone in Kingston, how hotels

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have been switched and how, you know, observing nonprofit organizations

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and experts have been put in different rooms so that delegates have to

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move rooms or call the people who they need to

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you know, who they need to confide in

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to be like, hey, what's going on here? This is what this country is saying that

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we need to do. They want to go ahead with deep sea mining. What's the problem? Where

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are the risks? All this kind of stuff. They were in a different room

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and they weren't even allowed to go into the room where the negotiations were happening.

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It doesn't provide a lot of transparency. It doesn't allow for critique.

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It doesn't allow for transparency. It's sketchy. It's

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sketchy at best. And that's not good. You want this

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process, you know, if there is going to be deep sea mining, which

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I don't believe there should be, but if there is going to be deep sea mining, you

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want to make sure that the process is transparent. You want to make sure that the rules and

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regulations are not only going to be put in place, you know, that

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are going to be more in the cautionary approach, but you want to make sure that they're enforced. And

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that's a lot of work to put in place. It's a lot of

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work to put in place. So, I think it'll be interesting to

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see, you know, where everything is

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going to go. Lodge did not interview for this

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article, so we didn't really get, you know, his side

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on this, but it seems like Carvalho is somebody who

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is willing to be transparent, somebody who is willing to

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keep the ocean's health in mind, but

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still you know, be able to put those rules and regulations in place to

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mine. I mean, I think it's inevitable that deep sea mining is going to

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happen, but how it's going to happen is a very important. It's

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a very important process. We need to make sure we're doing it

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properly. And we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to

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protect the deep sea, because we know nothing about the deep sea. We know very, very

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little about the deep sea. And so discoveries like we

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talked about in the last episode with the dark oxygen, that's going

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to be something that needs to be explored more. And we need to make sure

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that we know more about it before we make any crazy claims

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that we need to do some deep sea mining. So that's it for me

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today. I would love to hear your point of view. Who do

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you think should get into power? Do you think it should

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be Carvalho or do you think it should be Lodge? I would love to know what

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you think. If you're on Spotify, listening to this on Spotify, I'll put a

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poll and you tell me which ones you think, you tell me which person

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you think should be going in. And yeah, that's

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it. If you want to leave a comment on the YouTube video,

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you can do that because I'm doing video podcasting now on Spotify and on

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YouTube, but also still doing the audio thing. So look

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me up on Apple, look me up on Spotify, look me

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up on Overcast or whatever app you love to

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listen to on your podcast. I will be there. And if I'm not, let me

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know and I will try and get on it. I'm trying to be on every podcast

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app that I know that is available. But also, if you want to get

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a hold of me, you can do so by DMing me at HowToProtectTheOcean

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on Instagram. That's at HowToProtectTheOcean. And

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I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to

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Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time. And happy conservation.