Abstract
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Highlights
The Potential Impact of Deep-Sea MiningThere is increasing interest worldwide in the potential for deep-sea mining to serve as an engine for “Blue Growth” and to drive sustainable economic development (European Commission, 2012; Wedding et al, 2015)
Recognizing that the primary obligation of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) is to prevent harm to the marine environment, if deep-sea mining is allowed to proceed without adhering to an aim of no net loss (NNL) the benefits arising from any compensatory actions should be considered to outweigh the losses of deep-sea ecosystems and services to humankind as a whole
If mining is permitted and losses accepted, national governments, the ISA, and deep-sea mining contractors will need to focus even greater attention on the preventive steps of the mitigation hierarchy using a precautionary and adaptive approach. This should be accompanied by research inside and outside mining areas that add to our knowledge and capacity to better understand and protect deep-sea biodiversity, and that is additional to pre-existing legal requirements (Rainey et al, 2014)
Summary
There is increasing interest worldwide in the potential for deep-sea mining to serve as an engine for “Blue Growth” and to drive sustainable economic development (European Commission, 2012; Wedding et al, 2015). There is increasing concern that the direct and indirect impacts of mineral extraction in the deep sea will result in a significant loss of biological diversity ( referred to as biodiversity) (CBD, 1992; Wedding et al, 2015). With the current absence of a detailed understanding of ecological relationships, the precautionary approach advocated by several international commitments and legal obligations including that of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992) suggests that we assume that healthy, functioning deep-sea biodiversity is, as in other realms, highly desirable and provides services beneficial to humankind. Recognizing that the primary obligation of the ISA is to prevent harm to the marine environment, if deep-sea mining is allowed to proceed without adhering to an aim of NNL the benefits arising from any compensatory actions should be considered to outweigh the losses of deep-sea ecosystems and services to humankind as a whole. We explore the difficult question of what considerations ought to be required of any agreed compensatory action should such a scenario arise
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