Defend­ing the Ocean from Deep Sea Mining

Deep Sea Min­ing Campaign

Deep-sea min­ing (DSM) threat­ens frag­ile, lit­tle-under­stood marine ecosys­tems and risks caus­ing irre­versible dam­age. Despite grow­ing sci­en­tif­ic con­cern and reg­u­la­to­ry gaps, some coun­tries are mov­ing for­ward with plans to mine nation­al waters or spon­sor com­pa­nies to exploit the inter­na­tion­al seabed. These actions, along with ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions under the Inter­na­tion­al Seabed Author­i­ty (ISA), risk open­ing the deep ocean to large-scale indus­tri­al min­ing before the full envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate impacts are known.

Although 37 states have called for a mora­to­ri­um, the DSM Cam­paign (DSMC) is work­ing to expand oppo­si­tion by col­lab­o­rat­ing with Pacif­ic civ­il soci­ety, gov­ern­ments, sci­en­tists, jour­nal­ists, envi­ron­men­tal advo­cates, and the finance sec­tor. Through high-qual­i­ty research, tech­ni­cal sup­port to NGOs, and pub­lic engage­ment, DSMC aims to build momen­tum for bans at nation­al and region­al lev­els. They will also urge the finance sec­tor to exclude DSM com­pa­nies from fund­ing and insur­ance to lim­it destruc­tive min­ing activities.

For more information visit: https://dsm-campaign.org/