The Concept of Oceanian Sovereignty in the Context of Deep Sea Mining in the Pacific Region

Virginie C Tilot,Edwige Kacenelenbogen,Bleuenn Guilloux,Tamatoa Bambridge,Alain Jeudy De Grissac,Paul D’Arcy,Juan Moreno Navas,Alexander Mawyer,Klaas Willaert,François Gaulme,Arthur Dahl,Clement Y Mulalap

doi:10.3389/fmars.2021.756072

Abstract

Based on an interdisciplinary experience addressing traditional dimensions in marine resource management in the Pacific, the socio-ecological interconnectivity between island communities, the ocean realm and the legal context concerning the management of seabed resources (Tilot, 2006, 2010; Tilot et al., 2018, 2021a,b; Mulalap et al., 2020; Willaert, 2020a,b, c; 2021; DOSI, 2021), this paper proposes to discuss the relevance and efficacy of the concept of “Oceanian Sovereignty” (Bambridge et al., 2021) in the context of Deep Sea Mining, from the different legal, environmental, anthropological, social, political, and economic science perspectives. The policies and practices developed in the Pacific in this context could well serve as a suitable model elsewhere to reconcile competing perspectives in addition to sustaining the Human Well-being and Sustainable Livelihoods (HWSL) and the health of the Global Ocean.

Highlights

The concept of the Blue Economy has come into increasing prominence since 2010, and perhaps nowhere more so than in many Pacific Island nations whose “sovereign” territory is overwhelmingly maritime
True technological progress increasingly allows us to escape this dry alternative: after all, apart from the more than €10 billion it might provide in annual turnover by 2030 (EU COM, 2012), the ambition of deep sea mining (DSM) is to serve as sources of metals in the twenty first century, in particular rare earth elements (REE) (Hein et al, 2020), and to help societies transition from carbon heavy fossil-fuels to renewable resources, in particular to supply Electric Vehicle Systems batteries (Takaya et al, 2018)
An essential first step in that direction would be to consider vast oceanic spaces as bursting with precious life, and as a highly social and political locus, a “voluminous” (Bridge, 2013; Elden, 2013) or “ontological” space, that is, a political—even moral—actor in its own right (Lehman, 2013; Steinberg and Peters, 2015) and which is woven through with what we identify as dynamic issues of Oceanian sovereignty (Bambridge et al, 2021)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The concept of the Blue Economy has come into increasing prominence since 2010, and perhaps nowhere more so than in many Pacific Island nations whose “sovereign” territory is overwhelmingly maritime. The case studies assembled in Sterling et al (2017) include several examples of socio-ecological indicators developed directly at the community level in the Pacific Islands and elsewhere, and one approach incorporating a Maori world-view of the complete unity of people and the natural world, based on interconnectedness, extended time periods, and intergenerational equity, that would be relevant to assessing islanders’ connections to the ocean realm near and far All indicators in these studies have proven to support community decision-making while providing information to policy makers in different contexts, in particular on how local communities contribute to the maintenance of biological diversity and on the ecosystems’ ability to respond to stresses and global change. Further steps would require a risk assessment of the whole region including marine environment (coastal and deep environment) and biodiversity, socio-economic considerations (in particular ecosystem services), health and safety, natural and cultural human heritage (Cormier and Londsdale, 2020; Tilot et al, in progress)

DISCUSSION

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Discussion