Here be nodules: will deep-sea mineral riches divide the Pacific family?
What’s black, shaped like a potato and found in the suitcases of Pacific leaders when they leave a regional summit in the Cook Islands this week? It’s called a seabed nodule, a clump of metallic substances that form at a rate of just centimetres over millions of years.
Deep-sea mining advocates say they could be the answer to global demand for minerals to make batteries and transform economies away from fossil fuels. The prime minister of the Cook Islands, Mark Brown, is offering nodules as mementos to fellow leaders from the Pacific Islands Forum (Pif), a bloc of 16 countries and two territories that wraps up its most important annual political meeting on Friday.
The Guardian has obtained an image taken by a source inside the event earlier this week, although the same photo was first published by the Islands Business journalist Nic Maclellan.
A spokesperson for Brown confirmed that the gifts provided to leaders this year “included items of cultural and unique significance to the Cook Islands, such as a traditional tivaevae (quilt) and a traditional Vaka (canoe) which held a Cook Islands nodule”.
When the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, met Brown in his office this week, eagle-eyed observers noticed something curious in one of the official photos posted on X/ Twitter: the desk contained a bowl of seabed nodules.
The host country’s gift decision has raised eyebrows because the Pif is deeply divided over deep-sea mining.
Some leaders, like Brown, are in favour of exploring the economic potential of collecting nodules from the sea floor depending on further studies.
But some of his regional counterparts fear it will be a tragic mistake and are vigorously pushing for a moratorium.
‘We’re here as friends of the ocean’
That divide was on full display on the island of Rarotonga, where most
of this week’s summit meetings have been held. Just a five-minute walk from the national auditorium where delegates mingled, the Cook Islands’ only cinema screened the documentary film Deep Rising twice this week.
The 93-minute film, directed by the Canadian filmmaker Matthieu Rytz, is a call to action to protect the oceans, including animals deep below. Narrated by the Aquaman actor Jason Momoa, it ends with this plea: “The deep sea bed is our common heritage – we can claim it back.”
Tuesday night’s event at Empire Theatre was organised by Te Ipukarea Society, a Cook Islands environment group whose name means “our heritage”.
“You would know that the Cook Islands is currently in an exploration phase to collect data on whether it’s safe to mine or not within our Marae Moana [marine park],” the society said when it promoted the event to the local community. “How aware are you of the potential risks involved?”
About 120 people attended the screening, including some high-powered guests who had been at the Pif conference shortly before, like New Caledonia’s president, Louis Mapou, and the Pacific oceans commissioner, Filimon Manoni.
The president of Palau, Surangel Whipps Jr, revved up the audience with a speech before the film was played. “We’re here together as friends of the ocean, stewards of the ocean, and people that truly, deeply care about the ocean,” Whipps said.
He said one of his biggest concerns was “carbon that we’ll release, species that will be lost” as a result of disrupting the seabed. Pacific island countries, said Whipps, shared “one ocean” and something done in one part could affect “all of us”.
“And we, of course, Palau, and other Pacific Island countries and many countries around the world have asked for a moratorium on deep-sea mining,” Whipps said.
“The moratorium is really to allow for the proper research to be done and not to … destroy something that we will never be able to bring back,” he added, prompting the audience to break out in applause.
An encore screening was held the following night with 80 in the audience, and another is planned next week.
A big ‘opportunity’
A different perspective can be found just a short walk from the cinema, at a pavilion where a range of semi-official and external groups have set up displays and information booths for the hundreds of delegates, civil society members and observers who have travelled to Pif.
One of the exhibitors is the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority, which emphasises that its vision is for “a sustainable minerals future” for the country.
“The Cook Islands’ vision for the seabed minerals sector is deeply grounded in our connection to the ocean and shared aspirations to leave a generational legacy of economic and social prosperity for future generations,” it says in an information sheet.
The authority notes that the Cook Islands – like many other Pacific Island nations – has limited opportunities for sustainable economic growth and diversification.
“Forty years of ocean survey work suggests as much as 6.7bn tonnes of mineral-rich manganese nodules, found at a depth of 5,000m, are spread over some 750,000 square kilometres of the Cook Islands continental shelf,” it says.
‘Guinea pigs’
The Cook Islands – a nation of 15 small islands located between Tonga and French Polynesia – issued three exploration licences within its exclusive economic zone last year. Brown maintains he wants to “proceed with caution” and promises to be guided by science.
Brown’s spokesperson told the Guardian on Friday that the Cook Islands was “taking a precautionary approach” and that was why it was “only allowing exploration activities to take place” at this stage.
“We also recognise and respect the varying views of Pacific countries on deep-sea minerals, as is their sovereign prerogative – and we look forward to continuing our constructive dialogue on deep-sea minerals as a Pacific family,” the spokesperson says.
The idea has significant opponents within the region. The Melanesian spearhead group – which includes the governments of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu – decided in August to push for a Pacific region-wide moratorium on seabed mining.
The group said “very little” was known about the effects of seabed mining on the ecosystems of the oceans, and raised concerns that the impacts on the natural environment could extend beyond national borders.
“There are countries like our host in Cook Islands [and] Nauru who are going for the seabed minerals route,” Vanuatu’s climate change minister, Ralph Regenvanu, said at the film screening this week. “We are going to try to stop it.”
The president of French Polynesia, Moetai Brotherson, invoked even stronger language on the sidelines of the Pif summit this week.
“We all share this Moana Nui a Hiva [great ocean], and we have to be very cautious,” he told Islands Business.
“This is the cradle of life, and we don’t want to be guinea pigs. We’ve been guinea pigs for the nuclear tests, and we don’t want to be guinea pigs for deep-sea mining if it goes full scale before the technology is ready.”