Earth Today | Marine biologist wants support for research into deep sea mining
Published:Thursday | April 7, 2022 | 12:07 AM
WITH GROWING climate dangers associated with human consumption of fossil fuels, one local scientist insists it is now more important than ever to support research that advances the understanding of the value of the deep sea before running ahead to mine the area.
“Mining is destructive and non-renewable; resources would not be returned over millennia and in some cases never. So governments need to refuse to support the granting of licenses (for the exploitation of mineral resources from the deep sea) until there is more research into the effects of disturbing these areas as well as the potential value in terms of ecosystem services,” noted Professor Mona Webber, head of the Centre for Marine Sciences at The University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona.
Her comment comes in the wake of the recent meeting of the International Seabed Authority in Kingston, where consideration was given to the draft regulations on the exploitation of mineral resources.
Those regulations, if and when they come on stream, are to guide the deep-sea mining industry, which it is projected could be worth as much as $1 trillion to the United States economy each year. The deep sea is seen as an important source of, for example, rare earth metals that play a role in the development of technologies.
According to Webber, “the same prospecting activities and explorations must be made to collect data that allow us to assess the ecosystem value and the potential effect of its destruction”.
“It is especially critical to determine the value of the deep sea in carbon removal and burial at this time when the world is on the brink of climate disaster. What would be the economic losses of disturbing what could be one of the largest reservoirs of buried carbon?” she told The Gleaner.
Webber, a marine biologist and ecologist with more than 25 years of experience in teaching and research, suggested that the necessary resources should be mobilised for this purpose.
“We cannot use the excuse that ‘there is no evidence to support the disastrous effect of mining’. We need to do the research and get the evidence,” she said.
“Most of us lack the resources to study these areas, however, scientists have begun to analyse the resilience of the animals in the specific mining areas. The research seeks to mimic the effects of nodule mining and demonstrate how organisms would recover. The research shows that while densities and diversity could be regained, it would take millennia and could still cause substantial community shifts,” Webber added.
“There is need for research that shows the value of the deep sea processes (e.g. carbon burial) as well as the deep sea biota. There may be equivalent biological resources in terms of bioactive compounds that can be ‘reaped’ without complete destruction of the ecosystem and organisms. Ecosystem valuation of the deep sea is virtually unknown. We need to stack up these ecosystem services against the value of the metals that we are seeking to mine,” the professor, who is also the James Moss Solomon Sr Chair in Environment at The UWI Mona.