Leticia Carvahlo -The New Leader of the International Seabed Authority: What it Means for Deep Sea Mining

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Brazilian oceanographer Leticia Carvalho has now been named

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officially as the next Secretary General of the International Seabed

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Authority, the ISA, after winning the election. That

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could change the course of deep sea mining. So if you're interested

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in finding out what's going to happen to deep sea mining going

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forward as of January 2025, then this is the episode that

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you're going to want to watch and listen to here on the

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How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey,

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm

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your host, Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how

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you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by

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taking action. And I am proud and happy

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to let you know that Leticia Carvalho, the Brazilian

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oceanographer, won the election to become the next

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Secretary General of the International Seabed Authority by

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quite a number. She was able to get 79 votes, while

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her predecessor, 64-year-old Michael Lodge, who served

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as the ISA Secretary General for the last two terms, received

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34 votes, so just destroying him, doubling the

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votes. Very happy to say that. Carvalho,

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who's 50 years old, currently works as an international civil

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servant for the United Nations Environment Program,

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the UNEP, was declared the winner on August 2nd,

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and this is actually the time that we actually published the last episode on

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August 2nd, or two episodes ago, where I discussed why

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Leticia should be involved in this the

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isa who should be the leader she's an oceanographer she understands that

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transparency is really important and so she's

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going to begin her leadership on january 2025 january

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1st 2025 she will be the first woman the first oceanographer and

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the first representative from latin america to serve in

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this position. Huge, huge news

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coming out of the ISA meetings that just wrapped up

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in Jamaica on August 2nd. What's

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interesting is commercial scale deep sea mining hasn't begun

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anywhere. But there's a huge push from mining

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companies to start to explore and start to rapidly ramp

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up this type of activity. And Lodge, he's

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been accused of kind of supporting the mining companies and ramping it up and

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also not being as transparent as the ISA should

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be. Now the ISA should be a body, is designed to be

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a body that's in the middle. It's supposed to promote deep

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sea mining, but also in a sustainable manner,

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but also protect the ocean and protect the marine habitats and protect humankind. So

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there's two, as I mentioned in the last episode, I

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discussed this in Friday's episode or two episodes ago, there's sort

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of two combating forces a lot of times, which really

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requires one thing. And Lechisa Carvalho has been running

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her election campaign, if you will, on this, which is transparency. You

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have to be transparent. As an international seabed authority,

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you have to be transparent in how all these activities

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are conducted. And so the way Lodge did it

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wasn't that great. In Mongabay News they mentioned, during his time

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as Secretary General between 2016 and 2024, Lodge

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pushed for the finalization of the mining code as a set of

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rules that would allow deep sea mining exploration to begin. However, This

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is really important. This code was not ultimately finished under

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his tenure. Lodge has also been accused of advocating

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for mining companies, which goes against the ISA Secretariat's

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duty for remaining neutral and keeping the

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ISA's process and procedures unnecessarily opaque. More

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recently, Lodge has also been embroiled in allegations that he misused

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agency funds and that one of his supporters tried to bribe

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Cavallo to drop out

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of the election in exchange for another high-level position within the ISA.

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Lodge, however, has refuted all of these claims. They're just alleged. It

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hasn't happened. They haven't seen evidence that provides this. However, you

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know, he's out. so whatever happens to him it doesn't matter

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anymore from you know going forward with deep sea mining his

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uh code mining code wasn't put forth there's you

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know it was really interesting over the last you know 10 years or

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less you know like 2016 i remember talking

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to dr andrew thaler and i'm like Where's this deep sea mining going? And

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he's like, hey, man, he's like, in 2030, we might see some action. But before

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that, we probably won't see some action. And that was really it. There were a lot of

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countries who were just like, we have a moratorium on deep sea mining, there's and that's

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still going. And there's 32 countries who continue to support that

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moratorium, even with the changes that have been happening recently. And,

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you know, last five years or so, you started to see large

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really push to create this mining code. And it

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can never really be agreed upon by the end of these meetings that happen every year

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in Kingston, Jamaica, every summer in July. And so, you

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know, there's it's always been weird. It's like, why all of a sudden this push? You

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know, we're always taking a precautionary approach. We're always taking a conservative approach.

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So why all of a sudden this push? And then you start to hear allegations that,

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hey, you know, Lodge might be more on the mining company side than

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on the environment side and on the people side. Because that's

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what really happens here. When we start to talk about deep sea

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mining or any kind of issue that relates to the ocean,

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there are people who pay for this. These are the people in the countries where

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the mining is happening or anything that's happening that's going to change the ocean

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dynamics. We have no idea how deep sea mining is

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going to change the ocean. In fact, last week I also talked

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about this dark oxygen where you saw the nodules that

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are wanting to be mined actually produce a high enough voltage

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to separate oxygen from the hydrogen

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modules in water to produce more oxygen at the bottom of

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the ocean. And we're starting to see that when we start to see more

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oxygen, we start to see more biodiverse areas and habitats in

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the deep sea, which we're not expecting to see. Maybe you see a

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special area like hydrothermal vents, but that's a completely different

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podcast. That's a completely different habitat. To see it where you see

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actual oxygen that's being produced, and you're seeing more biodiverse areas,

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more animals in there, now we're talking about a really

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important discovery. and we're just getting into that. All of

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a sudden, if we start to mine those areas, then we're going to see that disappearance of

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oxygen. We're going to see the disappearance of those animals. But

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we also don't know what's going to happen to those areas when

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you take all those nodules out, or you disturb the bottom by

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digging into the bottom. We have no

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idea. And the countries that are closest to that will pay for that

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price. And right now, we just don't know where the money.

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I doubt deep sea mine is going to happen off the coast of developed countries. It's

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probably going to happen off the coast of developing countries, who they don't necessarily

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have a huge say. Or other countries can

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bribe them to say, hey, you know what? Let's start in your area, and

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we'll give you a school, or we'll build all these things for

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you. That's what happens in a lot of these international agreements, especially when it comes down

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to the environment. I remember, you know, stories from the International

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Whaling Commission, the IWC, where you see countries like Japan and

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Norway and Iceland in the past have, you know, supported

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other countries, smaller countries, who may not have the same resources

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they do, and started to, all of a sudden, there's schools and buildings that

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are being built on those, on these small island countries, and all,

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to get votes, and they'll vote the same way they want at the IWC when

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they talked about the moratorium on whaling. This happens

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all the time. This is not something that's new. But to have a

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system that is, you know, like an international

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body, authority to say, hey, we're going to try and keep things as

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transparent as possible. We want to make sure that everybody knows

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what's going on. We're not going to sway one side

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or the other or one way or the other. And we're just going to help to

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get this process going. Can we do deep sea mining and be

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sustainable? Will this help mankind? We don't know.

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At this point, we just don't know if that's going to happen. And there's really no

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rush in doing that. Now, what's interesting is one mining company in

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Canada, Canadian based The Metals Company, really interesting name

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called TMC. As you can see, I'm a little biased, but has

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repeatedly expressed its intention to apply for an exploitation license later

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this year, even before the mining code was finished. But

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that's not gonna happen because Cavarlo has said that she believes granting

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such a license before regulations are in place would be

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a source of litigation. So advocates for deep sea

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mining say the seabed minerals are needed to fulfill metal shortages

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and provide materials for renewable energy technologies such as electric car

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batteries. Yet critics say deep sea minerals are

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unnecessary for such technologies and that deep sea mining could irreparably

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damage the seabed and overall marine environment, which they

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are correct. Like I said, the fact that

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we don't know what's gonna happen, the fact that we are running into this

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blindly is scaring the hell out of all of us. This

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is something that we cannot... and will not

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put up with. We've done this before. We did this

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with a lot of other technologies. Fossil fuels, we do it all the

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time. We run into situations, mining we did, like, you

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know, mining on land. And, you know, was

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it tar sands, right? Digging for tar sands. And the

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extra, like, the waste that is produced from mining and

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from tar sand oil and gas production

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is horrible. You see these wastewater ponds that have been awful.

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We've regulated that in Canada and the US. I'm

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not sure about other countries. I'm sure about other countries. They've probably done very similar

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ones where they've put in regulations for mining. But the

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tar sands kind of just, they just get to do whatever they want, it seems.

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Where companies are coming in from other countries, they're

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providing jobs, short-term jobs, destroying our environment, destroying

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the global environment. and then putting out wastewater pans and not even

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cleaning them up, which costs like hundreds of millions of dollars of cleaning up, and

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they're not made to clean them up. This

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is ridiculous. This is something that we can't, this is

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what happens when we rush into things for short-term money. And

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it just goes off all the time. This is something

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that we need to stop. And so coming at a new

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leadership with an oceanographer from

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Brazil, from Latin America, to start saying, hey, we need to

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be transparent. We need to stay true to the mandate of

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the ISA. We need to stay true to that. We need to be as transparent as

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possible. We need to hear all sides. We need to discuss. There's

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a lot of things that we need to discuss, and we're not even close to finishing these

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mining regulations. Why rush into it? And why issue permits

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when we don't have to? And I think that's a really great way of

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moving things forward. I think it's really important. And

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Matt Gianni, who's the co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, thinks

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the same thing, too. It's a group of NGOs that campaign against deep sea

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mining. He said he was surprised by the number of country delegates that

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came to this year's ISA meeting or sent in their proxy votes

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for the election, and also that such a large majority voted for

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Carvalho. We don't always get these types of wins. This is a big win.

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This is something that we should celebrate. He said, this is a historic moment

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for the ISA, and we congratulate Leticia Carvalho and

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the government of Brazil for her election. The ISA has

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an opportunity to champion a new way forward for sound ocean

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governance that prioritizes the precautionary principle and

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secures the health of the deep sea and its benefits for

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future generations. Now, with that said, this is a

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win. It does not mean that we aren't going to be doing

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deep sea mining in any future. It doesn't mean that

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this is the end of the deep sea mining campaign. Letitia

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Carvalho has a duty to be transparent, but she also has

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a duty to balance that, making sure that we're protecting the environment,

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but also making sure that deep sea mining is the right thing to do

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going forward and it'll be done properly and making sure those regulations are

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in place. So going in with a precautionary approach is very good, but

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let's be honest, the ISA is there. At some

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point it might and will probably put out,

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you know, permits for deep sea mining. So

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this will be interesting to see what's going to happen forward. I have a lot more

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confidence in the ISA now that Letitia Carvalho is

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the leader. This is something that I really like, you should like

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as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. You know, there's so

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many ways that you can get a hold of me. You can leave a comment on this YouTube video

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that you're watching, or if you're not watching on YouTube, you can go to YouTube, subscribe,

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and you can leave a comment, or leave a comment if you don't subscribe, it's up to

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you. You can hit me up on Spotify, leave a comment or

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answer any of the polls that I have on there. If I put up a poll, may

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or may not, we'll see. I don't want to do polls every time, but I'd love to hear your comments if

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you're allowed to leave a comment. If you can't find the comments, I'd love for

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you to get a hold of me. Just hit me up on Instagram at howtoprotecttheocean,

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just DM me. I'd love to hear if you can actually do that on Spotify

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if you're a Spotify listener. It's something new that's coming out. I don't know

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the full ways of doing it. I can't do it, but I'm not a subscriber,

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so maybe it's only for people subscribed, but I'm still trying to figure all that out. Trying

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to do the whole podcasting thing and trying to figure out the new technology. So

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I'd love to hear your feedback on that. and the show, hit

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me up on Instagram at How to Protect the Ocean. And thank you

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so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast,

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especially one where we get to discuss such a great win for

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the issue of deep sea mining. Thank you so much for listening this

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episode of the How to Protect the Ocean. I am your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great