November 30, 2023

One of my great concerns is deep sea mining and I have been following the efforts to begin exploitation of manganese nodules since 1977. And now that it looks like this exceedingly destructive industry is about to begin operations, I am frustrated that I have not got a ship to oppose it.

The exploratory operations are happening now in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone halfway between Hawaii and Mexico, too far from where we are with the John Paul DeJoria, and I no longer have access to the Sea Shepherd ships that I commanded until my forced dismissal from Sea Shepherd Global.

However, this week I was thrilled to see that Greenpeace, the organization I co-founded in 1972 has initiated an amazing campaign with the boarding of them M/V Coco, a ship researching sea mining for The Metals Company.

This is one of the most important marine conservation issues and it is fantastic that Greenpeace is on top of it – literally.

The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise departed from Mexico and upon arrival deployed kayaks with activists boarding the vessel and climbing to the top of the winch used to lower the mining equipment to the seabed.

The Greenpeace activists boarded last week and they are still occupying the place on the winch, freezing the operation and costing the company some one million dollars each day.

The research project is being carried out by the Canadian The Metals Company (TMC). Billions of the potato sized nodules cover a vast area of the seabed, rich in cobalt, nickel, manganese, Zinc and other elements.

Removing these nodules means permanent damage to a benthic eco-system that harbors thousands of species. Each nodule takes about 200 million years to grow through slow accumulation, growing about 1 cm every one thousand years.

In addition the mining of these nodules will produce vast clouds of silt that will leach oxygen from the sea as the particles slowly descend, eventually creating a blanket of silt that will smother all benthic marine species.

The Metal Company is suing Greenpeace and have asked a judge in the Netherlands to sue Greenpeace $50,000 per hour that the activists occupy the ship. 

A decision is expected tomorrow, December 30th.

The Metal Company does not have any authority to undertake this research and the International Seabed Authority, a U.N. affiliated institution that is supposed to supervise any and all things related to deep sea mining has not approved any legislation allowing exploitation to begin.

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation is 100% onboard with Greenpeace on the issue and on this action.

“Greenpeace has every right to intervene against an unregulated industry intent on causing irreparable damage to marine eco-systems.” Said Captain Watson from onboard his ship the John Paul DeJoria presently off the coast of France intervening against destructive super trawlers

What bothers me most about The Metal Company is that they are saying that green alternatives like electric cars depend upon the destruction of deep-sea eco-systems. If this is so, we don’t need electric cars. It’s a nonrenewable resource that threatens to the survival of over 5,000 benthic species and threatens to cause vast dead zones in the Pacific Ocean.

#Greenpeace #CPWF #greenpeaceuk #seashepherdglobal #seashepherdswitzerland #seashepherdgermany #oceanmining#deepseamining #oceanblue #oceana #TheMetalCompany