Article Summary:

The Guardian reported yesterday that the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government has granted a 20-year license to the Canadian firm Nautilus Minerals to commence the Solwara 1 project, the world’s first commercial deep sea mining operation. This will involve mining the seabed 1.6km beneath the Bismarck Sea, 50km off the coast of the PNG island of New Britain. The ore that will be extracted contains high-grade copper and gold. Opponents of the plan express concerns that the ecological impact is impossible to predict, but may well include the decimation of deep water organisms yet to be discovered by science, sediment plumes could expose marine life to toxic metals and indirect impacts that could clog the gills of fish, affect photosynthesis and damage reefs. They also claim that the Canadian company has:

“Found a place so far away from people that they can get away with any impacts. They’ve picked an underfunded government without the regulation of developed countries that will have no way of monitoring this properly.”