The Norwegian parliament is going to have a foot in the door for deep-sea mining: Comment on the recent vote by Sognnes
If the government wants to be believed, it should first stop bulldozing environmental experts, says Kaja Lnne Fjrtoft.
The Norwegian Parliament voted this week to let companies explore its territorial waters for mining. The decision is a historic event: While some exploration has taken place in international waters in the Pacific, Norway is the first country to open its continental shelf up to deep-sea mining. Environmental advocates say it will lead to irreparable harm to oceanic biodiversity.
Anne-Sophie Roux, an activist who leads the campaign in Europe against deep-sea mining for the NGO the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, called the outcome of the vote a “half victory.” The decision allows for exploration only, and does not authorize exploitation activities, which are not intrusive.
The parliamentary decision, which passed with a large majority, will not only rattle the usually undisturbed creatures of the deep ocean—many of which are still unknown to science—but could affect wider maritime ecosystems and jurisdictions for decades to come.
The Divestments have been linked to the controversy surrounding deep-sea mining and the damage it can cause to underwater life. BMW has pledged not to use raw materials from deep-sea mining in its cars. In October, the UK joined Canada and New Zealand in calling for a pause on deep-sea mining until the environmental impacts of this new industry could be better understood. Those concerns are already making it difficult to find investment and strike deals with technology partners, Sognnes claims.
At the time of Tuesday’s vote, many large companies were cutting ties with deep-sea mining. Maersk sold its stake in TMC, a company with ambitions to start deep-sea mining off the island of Nauru, in May of last year. The UK Seabed Resources, a subsidiary of the US defense company, Lockheed Martin, was sold to Loke.
Walter Sognnes, CEO of Loke, considers the vote not just a license for exploration but also a foot in the door for extracting these minerals. “If you find the resources, and if you have the technology that shows that you can develop this with acceptable [environmental] impact, then you will have your green light,” he says of the process. If he gets a license to harvest minerals, Sognnes will be mining the manganese crust that is rich in rare earth minerals.
The Loke Marine Minerals, one of the first companies to embark on an exploration process that lays the groundwork for mining in the far north, has this eerie contraption. In a world-first, Norway’s parliament voted on Tuesday to allow a new generation of mining companies to search a large area of Norwegian waters for minerals used in electric cars, mobile phones, and solar panels.
The robot about to be let loose on the Norwegian seabed looks like a giant tripod, kicking up sand as it drills to collect samples from one of the last untouched places on Earth.