U.S lawmakers want to temporarily ban deep-seabed mining until a full assessment of its environmental impact is completed and a new regulatory regime is established to protect ocean resources.
Last week, U.S. Representative Ed Case (D-Hawaii) introduced two bills – one creating a moratorium on seabed mining in American waters, and one calling for an international moratorium.
“Our deep oceans and seabed are the last unexplored regions of our world, yet what we do know of them is that they are among our most intricate and fragile,” Case said in a statement. “All of these species and natural processes, and in fact our entire marine ecosystem, are now imperiled by the imminent commencement of large-scale commercial seabed mining operations. Seabed mining could take a number of destructive forms, including methods which would shear off seamounts on the ocean floor, the functional equivalent of strip mining.”…