Source: Chinadialogue Ocean
Author: Marcy Trent Long, Sam Colombie
Episode one of Mining the Deep, a new podcast series by Sustainable Asia, explains what the drive to exploit the deep seabed will mean for this vulnerable environment.
Continue reading Podcast: Is the ocean floor worth sacrificing?
Source: Liberation News
Author: Patricia Gorky
There is a new race for resources: the ocean floor.
Continue reading Deep-sea mining threatens ocean, global climate
Source: The Scientist
Author: Catharine Offord
Researchers have discovered high levels of biodiversity in deep-sea plains in the Eastern Pacific Ocean—an area that’s already been divvied up by mining companies for commercial exploration. The study, published today (October 17) in Current Biology, describes several new taxa of brittle stars, relatives of sea stars, and warns that industrial exploitation of the region could lead to serious declines in these and many other poorly documented species.
Continue reading Proposed Deep-Sea Mining Zone Harbors Previously Unknown Species
Source: chinadialogue ocean
Author: Jessica Aldred
Prof Mat Upton is a medical microbiologist and Dr Kerry Howell is a deep-sea marine ecologist. At the University of Plymouth they have discovered antimicrobial properties in bacteria that live in a species of deep-sea sponge – a potential breakthrough in the fight against antibiotic-resistant superbugs. But they warn that such potential could be lost in the drive to exploit the ocean floor for minerals.
Continue reading Deep sea sponges may hold key to antibiotic resistance
Source: New Internationalist
Author: Diva Amon
I’m on a ship 1,600 kilometres away from the nearest landmass. It has taken us five days to get from California to the middle of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Our team sends a remotely operated vehicle 4.5 kilometres down to a flat abyssal plain that has never been explored by humans before.
Source: The Conversation
Author: Anna Metaxas & Verena Tunnicliffe
It is completely dark, just above freezing cold and the pressure is crushing: this is the deep-sea floor. Food is very scarce in this huge region, yet a great diversity of animals have adapted to exploit and recycle resources and thrive within it.
Continue reading Getting to the bottom of things: Can mining the deep sea be sustainable?
Source: Mining.com
Prime minister James Marape has agreed to support a 10-year moratorium on deep sea mining, first proposed by Fiji at the recent Pacific Islands Forum.
Continue reading 10-year moratorium on deep sea mining in PNG not enough – activists
Download press release here
The penultimate phase of UN negotiations to secure legal protection for biodiversity in the high seas and deep seabed Area have started in New York (19 August 2019) against a backdrop of growing concern over the prospect of deep-sea mining.
Continue reading Calls for a Deep Seabed Mining Moratorium Grow
Source: China Daily
Author: Karl Wilson
Whether companies should be allowed to mine the seafloor is a question gaining traction as the International Seabed Authority debates the drafting of a code that could eventually lead to such commercial mining.
