Deep-sea mining risks causing irreversible damage to the largest ecosystem on the planet. In the absence of evidence for its economic benefit, or its environmental impact, in 2023 Blue Marine called on the ruling Conservative party to rethink its position on the practice.
For years considered empty and lifeless, the deep sea is a mosaic of extraordinary habitats and ecosystems populated by unique animals. Corals have survived for millennia here, untouched by the energy of the sun. Hydrothermal vents, through which 80-degree water bubbles from the earth’s crust, may well be where life on Earth began. The longest living vertebrate – the Greenland Shark, which can live for 500 years – patrols the depths at a glacial pace.
Mining poses an existential threat to life here at a near-inconceivable scale. On average, each new mine would occupy 8,000 sq km; the largest mine on land is less than 10 sq km. Without any mitigation of the impacts, this activity would brazenly ignore the precautionary approach to which countries round the world are ostensibly committed.
As well as causing untold damage to the last untouched ecosystem – where scientists believe half a million species are yet to be discovered – debris from mining would pollute the habitats of whales, dolphins and other marine life, strangling the sea column of light and oxygen.
