A chance to get it right

For the past 15 years we have been hearing about the tantalizing potential of mining manganese nodules from the deep ocean floor. But the problem with these rich egg-shaped mineral deposits is that they are found between four and six kilometres under the ocean surface and, as yet, no commercially viable means has been devised for mining them.

The discovery of two new resources, cobalt-rich manganese crusts and polymetallic massive sulfides (PMS) is changing the picture entirely. Cobalt crusts (metalic crusts up to 15 cm thick found on the peaks and slopes of sea mounts) have been discovered in Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Guam and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Polymetallic massive sulfides (metallic deposits rich in a variety of metals including copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold) have been found in Papua New Guinea and Fiji, with prospects awaiting exploration in other countries.

It is the PMS that are creating the most excitement. The Pacific PMS deposits are particularly high in gold content, prompting the New York Times to describe them as “the richest volcanic deposits ever found at sea”.

The estimated value of the deposits, even at this early stage, is believed to be billions of dollars. “If you found this deposit on dry land, you d call these bonanza figures,” the usually sedate newspaper enthused.

Papua New Guinea has now become the first country in the world to issue commercial exploration licenses for polymetallic massive sulphides and Fiji has also been approached.

Along with the potential for vast wealth, however, comes the potential for devastating environmental damage.

PMS are rich in toxic heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium and thallium. With water being such a fluid medium, disturbed sediments and waste will be much more difficult to control than they are on land, and are likely to affect widely dispersed sea-life. The bitter lessons leamt from the debacles with the OK Tedi and Bougainville mines have prompted Papua New Guinea to totally overhaul its legislation governing mining on land and shown just how important it is to get the regulatory framework right from the very beginning.

Undersea mining brings with it a very different set of problems and issues and will need a whole raft of new legislation.

One of the big difficulties with undersea mining, is just how little is known in this area.

Many Pacific countries have not finished mapping their sea

boundaries and may therefore find they do not know the extent to which resources fall in their territory. On the environmental front, very little is known about sea life in the deep ocean.

Recently, highly heat-tolerant bacteria that could be very useful to industry, have been found around the very same “black smoker”volcanic vents that produce PMS. All sorts of other micro-organisms that could be useful to medical science, fish and crustaceans have been discovered but are, as yet, little studied.

If the Australian experience with the orange roughy fishery in the southern ocean is anything to go by, the characteristics of sea life may be very different than nearshore or wider ocean fisheries. In that case, it was found that orange roughy (a relatively newly discovered species that congregate around sea mounts) were very long-lived and, as a result, slow to breed.

There is still a risk that the intense fishing to which the orange roughy have been subjected, in the past few years, may already have caused irreparable damage to the stocks.

With undersea mining, the technology that would be used to recover the minerals is still being developed and as a result, the sorts of issues it would throw up, are unclear.

For stake-holders, such as the people of the host nation and holders of traditional fishing rights, the issues and problems associated with undersea mining are unfamiliar and will therefore require more time for consultation and discussion.

Monitoring of work in this area also presents particular problems as the resources are often far from land and impossible to see, or check up on, without hugely expensive vessels and

equipment.

Add to that all the economic issues associated with issuing licenses and providing an appropriate taxation regime and incentives to such a new industry, and it is clear just how bewildering a job governments have ahead of them in coming up with a regulatory framework for undersea mining and exploration. But that has not stopped them. Papua New Guinea is now the world leader in this field, with detailed and innovative legislation almost ready to go to parliament.

Fiji and Solomon Islands, with the help of the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC), are in the process of developing Green Papers for public discussion.

This is a critical time, for the region. The legislation being developed will govern an industry that has the potential to be even more lucrative than that other big sea-based earner, tuna, but also to produce devastating and irreversible environmental damage. Until now we have been in the relatively gentile stage of scientific research. During that time Japan, alone, has invested US$45 million in research which has produced information which, in theory, is fully available to Pacific host governments.

Once this industry goes into the commercial stage, which it already has in PNG, companies will be playing hard-ball and being a lot more guarded about what they find and will have to be required to provide environmental data.

The only way to ensure this industry genuinely benefits the people of the host nations, is to start the public debate and get the governing legislation right. ■

Jemima Garrett

Sydney