Trump has signed an executive order to open both US and international waters to deep-sea mining, ignoring a global treaty that controls the high seas.
"If you take out the nodules, the ecosystem is gone … the whole living community is gone."
Dr Patricia Esquete
Types of deep-sea mining
The Metals Company (TMC), a controversial deep-sea mining corporation, is applying for permits under US mining law, a loophole that allows them to exploit the seabed in international waters.
The international seabed zone encompasses 54 per cent of the planet’s surface. The designation was created in 1994 under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). When described as the “constitution for the oceans,” UNCLOS deceivingly implies that its role is protective. However, the treaty functions as architecture for exploiting ocean resources.
2/2
It does this by dividing the ocean into zones that control how and where nations and corporations can exploit the seas. As well, it supports the idea of the ocean as a vast, exploitable resource. Weak environmental protections are offered in return. UNCLOS speaks little of either the ocean itself or of diverse human-ocean relationships.
It is a constitution for the ocean, without the ocean.
earthling
Ponygirl
SearingTruth