Saving Seafood

Deep sea mining is the next geopolitical frontline — and the Pacific is in the crosshairs

January 23, 2026 — When the United States recently escalated its confrontation with Venezuela – carrying out strikes in Caracas and capturing President Nicolás Maduro — the moves were framed as political intervention.

But the raid also reflected a deeper contest over oil and critical mineral supply chains.

For Washington, controlling energy and strategic materials is now inseparable from power projection. That same logic is increasingly being applied in our own backyard — the Pacific seabed — where new mining could target minerals vital for batteries, electronics, clean energy and the military industrial complex.

WHAT IS DEEP‑SEA MINING?

In the Pacific, most attention today is on nodules in the Clarion‑Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a vast area between Hawaii and Mexico. This zone is administered by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an intergovernmental body responsible for safeguarding the deep sea.

Nodules, which appear like potato-sized rocks, are found scattered across seabed plains four to six kilometres beneath the surface. These nodules are rich in nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese – metals used in electric vehicle batteries, smart phones and wind turbines.

Mining them involves driving a robotic “vacuum” over the seabed, pumping nodules up a riser pipe to a ship, and shipping concentrates ashore for processing.

Nodules aren’t the only target. Companies also eye sulphide deposits at hydrothermal vents and cobalt‑rich crusts on underwater mountains.

Increasingly, seabed minerals have become geopolitically important – and for two key reasons.

First, the energy transition is driving up demand for nickel, cobalt and manganese, with agencies projecting at least a doubling over the next two decades. Second, supply chains are concentrated in a handful of countries, making democracies nervous about choke points.

Policy makers and firms therefore see seabed minerals as a hedge: a way to diversify sources of “critical minerals” for clean energy and military defence.

Read the full article at Samoa News

Feds plan to meet face-to-face on mining

January 12, 2026 — Federal officials from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Department of the Interior, are planning to visit Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in February to meet face-to-face with island residents and take public comments on deep-sea mining near the Mariana Trench.

Lester Carlson, director of the Bureau of Budget and Management Research, confirmed Monday that BOEM has requested meetings on Feb. 25 for Guam and Feb. 26-27 in the CNMI, though neither governor has finalized those dates.

“I think BOEM is set to visit,” Carlson told The Guam Daily Post. “It all depends on Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero’s and Gov. David Apatang’s availability.”

Both governors are scheduled to attend National Governors Association meetings in Washington, D.C., from Feb. 19-21, the week before the proposed visit.

“BOEM is a division of the Department of the Interior, so they’re well aware of the scheduling,” Carlson said. “All things being equal, both governors, if they return relatively quick from D.C., could be available for meetings that are requested the following week, but they have not confirmed yet.”

Read the full article at the Guam Daily Post

Legislature to hold hearing on opposition to deep-sea mining

December 30, 2025 — The Guam Legislature will hold a public hearing next week on a resolution that reaffirms the island’s call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining and objects to federal plans to lease waters near the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands for mineral extraction.

Sen. Therese Terlaje announced the hearing will take place Jan. 7 at 8:30 a.m. in the Guam Congress Building. The hearing will address Resolution 132-38, which has drawn support from 10 senators, including Sabina Flores Perez, Telo Taitague, Chris Barnett, Vice Speaker Tony Ada, William Parkinson, Vincent Borja, Joe San Agustin, Shelly Calvo, and Tina Muña Barnes.

The resolution targets a proposal from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that seeks commercial leasing of roughly 35 million acres along the Mariana Islands chain for offshore deep-sea mining. Guam sits about 128 nautical miles from the proposed mining area.

According to the resolution, legislators find BOEM’s 60-day comment period insufficient for meaningful consideration from Guam residents who would bear environmental, cultural, and social consequences of the proposed mining. BOEM initially set a Dec. 12 deadline for public comments but granted a 30-day extension to Jan. 12 after Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and CNMI Gov. David Apatang requested 120 days.

Read the full article at The Guam Daily Post

Deep-sea mining interests raise alarms among Mariana Trench communities

December 11, 2025 — U.S.-led plans to mine the deep seabed have gained momentum since President Donald Trump signed an executive order that called for the industry’s rapid formation to bolster U.S. national security. One recent development emerged in November, when U.S. agency Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) signaled its intent to open offshore areas of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) — an area known to harbor mineral-rich seamounts, hydrothermal vents and abyssal plains — to deep-sea mineral exploration and development.

On Nov. 12, BOEM issued a request for information, or RFI, which indicated its interest in offering mineral rights to companies through lease agreements along the CNMI’s outer continental shelf, a process that could eventually allow commercial mining to proceed on CNMI’s deep seabed. The publication of the RFI included the opening of a 30-day public comment period.

Yet several government officials in both the CNMI and the neighboring island nation of Guam — both of which are U.S. territories that could be directly affected by deep-sea mining in the region — have raised concerns about the brief window they’ve been given to respond to BOEM’s proposal. Some local residents are also pushing back against the proposal, arguing that deep-sea mining would irreversibly damage the marine environment, while disregarding the community’s deep cultural connection to the ocean. If seabed mining does go ahead in the region, critics say it would become another form of colonial exploitation in a region already heavily used by the United States for commercial and military purposes, at the expense of local communities.

Read the full article at Mongabay

What Scientists Found When a Deep Sea Mining Company Invited Them In

December 8, 2025 — Industrial mining of the seabed could reduce the abundance and diversity of tiny animals living in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, a new study found.

The study, published Friday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, was funded by The Metals Company, which is vying to become the first company to conduct commercial mining on the ocean floor.

Researchers from the Natural History Museum in London analyzed samples from the seafloor before and after a mining test and found that the number of worms, minute crustaceans and other small animals in the path of the mining vehicle fell 37 percent. The variety of the creatures also declined by 32 percent.

The data came from over 4,000 meters below the waves of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an area in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico that is targeted for seabed mining because it is rich with potato-sized nodules that contain nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese. The metals are used in renewable-energy technologies and also have military applications.

The Metals Company has spent some $250 million studying the environmental effects of seabed mining. The dozens of researchers involved had contracts that allowed them to independently analyze and publish their results. This emerging collection of work represents one of the largest and most comprehensive research efforts conducted in the Clarion-Clipper Zone to date.

More than a dozen countries, through state-owned entities or sponsored companies, hold United Nations permits to explore more than one million square kilometers of deep sea floor around the world. The agency’s International Seabed Authority has not yet approved commercial mining.

Read the full article at The New York Times

Trump admin eyes deep-sea mining in CNMI, 100-plus miles offshore Guam

November 20, 2025 — The federal government is eyeing a potential offshore mining project near the Mariana Trench, in an area around 128 nautical miles east of Saipan and around the same distance east of Guam, in response to executive orders from President Donald Trump.

Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Gov. David Apatang on Nov. 15 jointly asked for an additional 120-day extension on a comment period closing on Dec. 12.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, BOEM, announced on Nov. 10 a request for information seeking interest in commercial leasing for offshore mining operations near the CNMI and American Samoa.

Read the full article at Pacific Daily News

Feds wade closer to mineral lease in US waters

November 11, 2025 — The Trump administration is inching closer to opening U.S. waters to the first mineral lease sale in decades amid booming industry interest and growing anxiety among environmental groups.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, on Monday said it has identified areas off the coast of American Samoa for a mineral lease, and is seeking information about holding a lease sale off the shores of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The step signals agencies are moving forward with reviewing activity tied to deep-sea mining in U.S. waters, right as companies line up for permission to plumb the ocean depths for minerals both in domestic and international waters.

Read the full article at E&E News

Deep-sea mining risks disrupting the marine food web, study warns

November 6, 2025 — Drilling for minerals deep in the ocean could have immense consequences for the tiny animals at the core of the vast marine food web — and ultimately affect fisheries and the food we find on our plates, according to a new study.

Deep-sea mining means drilling the seafloor for “polymetallic nodules” loaded with critical minerals including copper, iron, zinc and more. While not yet commercialized, nations are pursuing deep-sea operations amid rising demand for these minerals in electric vehicles and other parts of the energy transition, as well as for technology and military use.

The researchers examined water and waste gathered from a deep-sea mining trial in 2022.

What the study discovered

University of Hawaii researchers studied an area of the Pacific Ocean called the “twilight zone,” about 650-5,000 feet (200-1,500 meters) below sea level. Their peer-reviewed findings, published Thursday in the Nature Communications scientific journal, say mining waste could affect anything from tiny shrimp smaller than .08 inches (2 millimeters) long to fish 2 inches (5 centimeters) long.

That’s because, after mining companies bring the mineral-rich nodules up to the surface, they have to release excess sea water, ocean floor dirt and sediment back into the ocean. That creates a murky plume of particles about the same size as the naturally occurring food particles normally eaten by the zooplankton that swim at that depth.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Nations ratify world’s first treaty to protect marine biodiversity in international waters

September 22, 2025 — A major agreement to protect marine diversity in the high seas was struck Friday when Morocco became the 60th nation to sign on, paving the way for the treaty to take effect next year.

The High Seas Treaty is the first legal framework aimed at protecting biodiversity in international waters, those that lie beyond the jurisdiction of any single country. International waters account for nearly two-thirds of the ocean and nearly half of Earth’s surface and are vulnerable to threats including overfishing, climate change and deep-sea mining.

“The high seas are the world’s largest crime scene — they’re unmanaged, unenforced, and a regulatory legal structure is absolutely necessary,” said Johan Bergenas, senior vice president of oceans at the World Wildlife Fund.

Still, the pact’s strength is uncertain as some of the world’s biggest players — the U.S., China, Russia and Japan — have yet to ratify. The U.S. and China have signed, signaling intent to align with the treaty’s objectives without creating legal obligations, while Japan and Russia have been active in preparatory talks.

Ratification triggers a 120-day countdown for the treaty to take effect. But much more work remains to flesh out how it will be implemented, financed and enforced.

“You need bigger boats, more fuel, more training and a different regulatory system,” Bergenas said. “The treaty is foundational — now begins the hard work.”

Read the full article at PBS News