CANADIAN GOVERNMENT MUST ACT TO PROTECT THE DEEP SEABED FROM MINING

In July, 2023, Canada declared its support for a global moratorium on deep seabed mining.
Now, it’s time to follow through. 

Following significant pressure from Canadian civil society, the Canadian government used the July 2023 International Seabed Authority (ISA) meetings to announce its support for a global moratorium on deep sea mining in international waters. The announcement by Minister Joly (Foreign Affairs), Minister Wilkinson (Natural Resources), and Minister Murray (Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard) recognizes the importance of marine ecosystems as a climate regulator and, critically, the lack of knowledge about possible impacts of deep sea mining. Canada’s 2023 statement says, “seabed mining should take place only if effective protection of the marine environment is provided through a rigorous regulatory structure, applying precautionary and ecosystem-based approaches, using science-based and transparent management, and ensuring effective compliance with a robust inspection mechanism.” 

Pacific Islanders, deep sea scientists, civil society organizations from around the world, global parliamentarians, governments, and beyond do not believe it will ever be possible to mine the deep seabed without doing serious and irreversible harm to life on the seabed, and to related marine ecosystems and species. Destroying the very habitat necessary for life on the deep seabed will never be sustainable. 

Canada has joined a growing list of countries calling for a moratorium, precautionary pause, or ban on seabed mining in international waters.

Now Canada must follow up with action:

• In July 2023 the Council of the International Seabed Authority adopted two decisions to the effect that the Council shall not allow deep seabed mining to proceed as long as the rules, regulations and procedures for mining, the Mining Code, are not completed. As the Mining Code is not completed, the Canadian delegation should decline to approve, or provisionally approve, mining applications;
• In 2023, leadership countries at the ISA proposed that there should be debate on what is now called a “General Policy of the Authority for the Protection and Preservation of the Marine Environment.” This debate has been opposed by some countries. The Canadian delegation should support a debate on the General Policy through high level interventions;
• The ISA is required, under Article 154 of UNCLOS, to “undertake a general and systematic review” every five years, “of the manner in which the international regime of the Area established in this Convention has operated in practice”. The last Article 154 review was conducted between 2015-2017. Leadership countries at the ISA are calling for the long-overdue review to take place before another roadmap for the completion of the Mining Code is set out. The Canadian delegation should support leadership countries in calling for an immediate review of the ISA;
• Currently, the draft Mining Code does not reflect Canada’s commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The Canadian delegation must advocate for including a process by which Indigenous peoples can provide or withhold consent.

Canada’s history at the International Seabed Authority and at home

While Canadian mining companies are on the forefront of profit-driven efforts to extend mining and its harmful impacts into the world’s oceans, until July 2023, Canada had failed to join the 12 leadership countries that had already come out in favour of a ban, moratorium, or precautionary pause on deep seabed mining.

For many years the Canadian government was missing in action in international negotiations about the regulations and guidelines for mining the seabed. Canada only sent one delegate to the International Seabed Authority (ISA) meetings in Jamaica and frequently missed opportunities to provide input on relevant documents. Canada’s failure to play an active role at the ISA in promoting protection of the marine environment, despite Canada’s international commitments to do so, raised serious questions about Canada’s commitment to protect the deep seabed from seabed mining. During this time the Canadian government also failed to respond to concerns raised by Canadians, failing even to respond to a joint letter from 19 Canadian organizations to six Government of Canada Ministries sent in February 2021.

Canada has regulations that would effectively ban deep seabed mining in Canadian territorial waters. Provisions under the Fisheries Act limit the amount of sediment (suspended solids) that may be released in fish bearing waters in recognition of the harmful effects on fish. Deep seabed mining models project that heavily-sedimented effluents will be ejected into the sea from a support ship 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The creation of large sediment plumes in the marine environment is widely recognized as one of the most harmful aspects of deep seabed mining, not only at the seabed itself, but also in the bio-rich mid-water regions where these effluents from the ship will be discharged. These plumes are projected to spread over great distances. However, if regulations for mining in international waters are completed Canada may “harmonize” our laws to conform with international regulations, thereby opening the door to deep seabed mining in Canadian waters. Note that at IMPAC5 meetings in Vancouver in December 2022, Canada did not commit to regulating a ban on deep seabed mining in Canadian waters. Canada should regulate a ban on seabed mining in Canadian territorial waters.

All of humanity will suffer the impacts of further degradation of the ocean’s ability to sustain life on Earth, but the most immediate impacts on food security will be felt by many of the world’s most vulnerable island and coastal communities. MiningWatch joins more than 700 marine scientists, global parliamentarians, Pacific and global citizens and governments in calling for a moratorium, ban, or precautionary pause on deep seabed mining.  

Canadian mining companies seek profits in the deep sea and in mining the markets

Nautilus Minerals Inc.

Canadian mining company Nautilus Minerals Inc. secured the first global permit for deep seabed mining in 2011. The permit was granted by the government of Papua New Guinea for mining of hydrothermal vents in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea. Amid sustained opposition by Papua New Guinean coastal communities and international allies, the company went bankrupt in 2019, leaving the Government of Papua New Guinea with a debt of $125 million. Some of the early investors in Nautilus, such as Gerard Barron, profited when the company went public and raised over $400 million. Barron reportedly “turned a $226,000 investment into $31 million” in six years.

Nautilus founder David Heydon created another deep seabed mining company, Canada’s DeepGreen Resources in 2011, and brought Barron into that company as CEO.

The Metals Company 

DeepGreen became a public company in September 2021 – renamed as The Metals Company (TMC) – via a so-called “blank cheque” special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). While CEO Gerard Barron markets the new company to potential investors as providing a “sustainable and cost effective alternative to traditional land based extraction” critics warn that “aside from being fundamentally unsustainable (…) the business proposal (…) is riddled with a multitude of risks” including “[w]orldwide concern from business, governments, scientists and civil society calling variously for a moratorium or ban on DSM.” Since then, The Metals Company has faced numerous setbacks, including financial, loss of investors, legal action against The Metals Company and in terms of its inadequate environmental performance.

The Metals Company holds three exploration licenses targeting polymetallic nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean. These licenses are held through sponsorships by the small Pacific countries of Nauru and Tonga and a partnership with Kiribati.

The Metals Company’s exploration permits derive from an unprecedented intergovernmental body called the International Seabed Authority (ISA) “with 168 members, each with their own political priorities and interests…attempting to act as a minerals licensing, monitoring and enforcement, and revenue collection agency.”

Profits for The Metals Company’s investors depend on the company receiving an exploitation license from the ISA, which is still attempting to come up with rules and regulations for any future seabed mining. Draft regulations released for comment to date are so weak as to raise significant concern that the ISA is rushing to get the regulations done on time to meet the industry’s ambitious commitments to investors.

Concern about the ISA’s rushed regulatory development process became heightened after Nauru, the Pacific island state sponsor of TMC’s wholly-owned subsidiary Nauru Ocean Resources Incorporated (NORI), triggered a never before used “two year rule” in June of 2021, just months before The Metals Company went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange. By doing so, Nauru has put undue pressure on the ISA to complete the regulations for deep seabed mining by June of 2023. 

In August of 2022, a damning investigative expose by the New York Times came out called “Secret Data, Tiny Islands and a Quest for Treasure on the Ocean Floor.” This piece documents the long-term relationship between then-Secretary General of the International Seabed Authority, Michael Lodge, and David Heydon. The article exposes that confidential data held by the International Seabed Authority with regard to very lucrative nodule areas – which had been set aside for developing countries – was shared with Heydon by Michael Lodge, leading ultimately to these areas becoming concessions of DeepGreen, and now The Metals Company.

Polymetallic nodules have taken millions of years to form and are critical habitat substrate for a surprisingly biodiverse deep sea ecosystem. The polymetallic nodules are also essential for food-web integrity. Scientists agree that the risk to deep sea biodiversity, much of which has yet to be discovered, is significant and that mitigating eco-system destruction from mining is impossible.