Deep sea mining concerns voiced at Ala Moana Beach and other locations around globe
By Eric Naktin
Click here for updates on this story
HONOLULU, Hawaii (KITV) — A Global Activation remains underway against deep sea mining.
Advocates joining together to take a stand…that included Ala Moana Beach Park on the Magic Island Side Sunday.
Conrad Morgan with Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii told Island News, “This is our first paddle out for the deep that we’ve organized and had here on Oahu, and it’s one of over thirty going on in the world.”
“We’re at a point right now where our deep sea is being threatened, by the deep sea bed mining, and from a push to start mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone which is off of our shores here in Hawaii, but globally we’re working to raise our voices”, added Morgan.
Many feel, the government is moving to fast track approvals for deep sea ocean mining.
Brittany Kamai, Founder of the Mana Moana Institute stated, “We have a really important role today, to continue to show up for our deep sea, whether or not you just came here for a visit, you’ve been here for generations, we have Kuleana to our land and our seas, so right now we have all of these places of influence, at the local level, the national level, and the federal level, so we’re doing this global paddle out to show how much we are connected by the ocean, because the ocean has no boundaries.”
According to some reports, America Samoa’s being targeted with a proposal for deep sea mining and U.S. Government could be preparing to open up not only federal waters, but also waters for deep sea mining.
Hanna Lilley, Hawaii Regional Manager with Surfrider Foundation expressed, “I think it’s important for the world to know, Hawaii’s consistently showing up to stand up against the harmful practice that is deep sea mining, a big issue with deep sea mining is that this is a very unexplored region, so we don’t know the full extent of environmental impacts, we do know these are incredibly biologically diverse, culturally significant, economically important locations.”
What is the potential benefit (regarding deep sea mining)?
“Deep sea mining is something that is pushed forward by corporate interests, so we have these corporate titans that are trying to exploit and mine the seabed floor to get the materials they need for renewable technologies such as cell phones and electric vehicles, and such, but the reality is that we don’t actually need to go into the deep sea to get these minerals and metals”, added Lilley.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
