The 14th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS COP14) took place from February 12-17, 2024, in the ancient city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Governments, scientists, and stakeholders gathered to agree on strategies for the conservation of wildlife. Did they succeed in their work to adopt strong protection measures for migratory species and their habitats?

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Twice a year, hundreds of millions of creatures, from small butterflies to colossal whales, embark on a long journey around the globe. Guided by the stars or the Earth’s magnetic field, they swim, fly, or walk thousands of miles, weaving distant ecosystems together. But migratory species are now under threat, many of them teetering on the edge of extinction.

To protect these animals, the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) was adopted in 1979. This global treaty of the United Nations addresses the conservation and management of migratory species and their habitats through the cooperation of countries across national borders. Today, 133 countries are Contracting Parties to the CMS, with an additional 28 countries involved through related agreements or memorandums.

The 14th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CMS took place in Samarkand from 12 to 17 February, 2024, making it the first ever UN COP to be held in Central Asia, a region that is home to many of the world’s migratory species. This global summit was also the first CMS COP since the Covid-19 pandemic, and the first major biodiversity meeting since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) in 2022. COP14 thus represented a historic moment for the conservation of migratory species and their habitats.

The conference, convened under the slogan “nature knows no borders”, brought together 470 delegates from 122 countries, along with hundreds of representatives of non-governmental organisations, intergovernmental organisations and UN agencies. In total, over 2,000 people attended COP14 and worked together to address the challenges faced by migratory animals with concerted actions and guidelines.

One in Five Migratory Species Threatened With Extinction

The conference in Samarkand opened with the launch of the first ever UN report on the State of the World’s Migratory Species, which provides an overview of the conservation status of migratory animals, the pressures they face, and the actions that need to be taken to support their recovery. The report revealed that 22% of all migratory species listed under the CMS – over one in five – are threatened with extinction, and 44% of them are showing declining population trends.

More on the topic: One in Five Migratory Species Threatened With Extinction, UN Report Reveals

Migratory species can be found in all major groups of animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. They move from one habitat to another during different times of the year, in order to find food resources, breeding sites or favourable climatic conditions. By connecting distant habitats, they perform key ecological functions such as pest control, seed dispersal and pollination, and contribute to the overall biological balance of ecosystems.

The CMS focuses on species which “cyclically and predictably cross one or more national jurisdictional boundaries.” This definition was developed for the purpose of legal protection and therefore focuses on a political criterion rather than a purely biological one. Species such as gorillas, which do not display migratory behaviours, can be included under the Convention, because their small movements take them across national borders. On the other hand, migratory animals that do not cross borders are not included in the CMS, for example aquatic organisms which migrate vertically within the water column.

According to the UN report, the decline of migratory species is primarily driven by human activities. One of the main threats to these animals is habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation, induced for instance by urban sprawl, infrastructure development or agriculture. Migratory species are also threatened by overexploitation, such as excessive hunting or overfishing. On top of these two main causes, climate change, pollution, invasive species and diseases also greatly affect migratory animals. 

“Migratory species face a cocktail of threats because they are moving through different habitats,” Dr Rob Cooke from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology told the BBC.

The UN report presented a worrying analysis on the state of migratory species but also provided recommendations for priority actions which served as scientific basis for the decisions taken during the conference.

More Species Listed for International Protection

One of the key outcomes of COP14 was the addition of new species to the CMS Appendices, extending international protection to various threatened animals.

The CMS applies to species listed in two Appendices. 

Appendix I lists migratory species which are in danger of extinction and require strict, mandatory protection from the Parties, while Appendix II covers migratory species that have an unfavourable conservation status and require international agreements for their protection as well as those which would significantly benefit from international cooperation. Some species can be listed in both Appendices.

In total, 14 new species, subspecies, and populations were added to the CMS Appendices following COP14. Among these, ten were added to Appendix I, such as the Balkan lynx and the Magellanic plover, and eleven to Appendix II, like the guanaco and Palla’s cat. Some of them were added to both Appendices, like Lahille’s bottlenose dolphin, the Peruvian pelican, and the sand tiger shark. Adding these species to the CMS Appendices should increase international cooperation and encourage specific conservation efforts for them.

In addition, Concerted Actions were initiated for six species, and existing ones were extended for nine. Concerted Actions are priority conservation measures, projects or institutional arrangements taken to address the threats and challenges faced by selected CMS-listed species.

Other Action Plans were adopted for the protection of specific species, including Atlantic humpback dolphins, hawksbill turtles, angel sharks, and African elephants. Multispecies Action Plans were also endorsed for migratory landbirds in the African-Eurasian region and several other bird species.

New Regional and Transboundary Initiatives

Several regional and multi-country initiatives were introduced to foster collaboration between range states, the countries in which a migratory species lives in or migrates through.

After nearly two decades of negotiations, a new agreement was reached on an Initiative for a Central Asian Flyway spanning across 30 countries to safeguard migratory birds in the region and strengthen coordination across the species’ ranges in Central Asia, while taking the needs and livelihoods of local communities into consideration.

Other new range, state-wide projects include the Sahelo-Saharan Megafauna to protect critically endangered large mammals native to the arid landscapes of northern Africa, and the Transboundary Jaguar Initiative, a tool to coordinate regional efforts for the conservation of this predator.

Marking the occasion of the COP being held in Central Asia, three regional players – Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan – jointly signed the CMS Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the Conservation of Migratory Birds of Prey in Africa and Eurasia, bringing the membership of this instrument to 64 signatories. MOUs are non-legally binding agreements between countries which focus on specific species or groups.

Similarly, Argentina signed the MOU on the Conservation of High Andean Flamingos and Their Habitats. The CMS and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also signed a MOU to support the priorities of the African Carnivores Initiative, a project in collaboration between two global treaties mandated to conserve wild species, the CMS and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITIES).

From Deep-Sea Mining to Animal Culture: New Resolutions on Cross Cutting Issues

Beyond these action plans and initiatives concerning specific species and regions, COP14 also considered many cross cutting issues affecting migratory animals globally.

A resolution was adopted on the highly controversial subject of deep-sea mining, urging parties “not to engage in, or support, deep-seabed mineral exploitation activities until sufficient and robust scientific information has been obtained” to ensure no harm is done to migratory species, their prey, and their ecosystems. This decision also requests the CMS Scientific Council to develop a state-of-knowledge report on the impacts of deep-sea mining on migratory species.

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The CMS is also the only biodiversity-related convention to account for animal culture in its decision-making. Animal culture encompasses “information or behaviours that are shared within a group or community and are acquired through social learning” rather than purely passed on through genes. Many animals display signs of culture, from sperm whales and chimpanzees to passerine birds and coral reef fish. Cultural processes can make species more resilient to rapid changes but they can also impact their response to conservation initiatives. 

The subject was discussed at COP14, and a decision was taken requiring the Scientific Council to investigate the conservation implications of animal culture and social learning by considering varied sources, including traditional knowledge from local communities and Indigenous Peoples.

A wide array of other subjects were reviewed, leading to updated or new resolutions for instance on light pollution, infrastructure, ecotourism, plastic pollution, marine noise, vessel strikes, and bycatch. COP14 also addressed priorities in the illegal and unsustainable taking of migratory species and discussed the impacts of pastoralism and livestock on biodiversity and zoonotic diseases.

A resolution on climate change was adopted, recognizing the catastrophic impacts of climate on migratory species and strongly urging Parties to take both climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. A decision was also taken on renewable energy, requesting parties to integrate biodiversity conservation needs into national energy and climate policy and action plans to minimise negative impacts on migratory species.

Finally, a new Global Partnership on Ecological Connectivity was launched to ensure that ecological connectivity is maintained, enhanced, and restored in critical areas for migratory species worldwide. Ecological connectivity, defined by the CMS as “the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth,” is particularly important for migratory species which need to move throughout ecosystems. Human activities, by modifying or fragmenting habitats, have disastrous impact on connectivity, affecting migratory animals and biodiversity in general.

The Limited Scope of the Convention

The CMS COP14 showed encouraging signs of international collaboration and commitments for migratory species conservation. The conference ended with landmark agreements, several multi-country action plans and new listed species, representing a significant step forward.

However, these positive outcomes represent only a part of a larger effort needed to protect migratory animals. New species being listed under the CMS is not in itself a conservation success but rather a sign that these species are under threat. 

The aforementioned UN report shows that populations are declining among CMS-listed species.

Scientists at the summit even stressed that, considering the accelerating rate of biodiversity loss, “by the time CMS can list a species… it may already be too late.” The criteria for being listed in the CMS Appendices is mostly based on unfavourable conservation status. Instead, listing species early, before they are threatened, could help protect them before they become critically endangered.  

The report also estimates that in total, 4,508 species are considered to be migratory, have had a global IUCN Red List assessment, and live in multiple range countries. Of these, 74% are not currently listed in the CMS, and 399 are globally threatened or near threatened species. These numbers make the 14 newly listed species rather insufficient.

But the CMS faces other challenges, too. Many of the resolutions adopted during the COP are not legally binding, and therefore rely on the goodwill of states to implement them. Turning resolutions into concrete actions also requires adequate funding and effective enforcement mechanisms at the national level. Besides, several extremely important states for global conservation are not parties to the Convention, such as the United States, Russia, China, Japan, and Canada.

Nature, indeed, knows no borders. Carbon emissions, floating plastics, and warming temperatures have little regard for territorial boundaries, just like wild animals. COP14 did a great job at recognizing the key threats that face them, and showed that international collaboration on the subject is not only necessary, but possible.

However, tackling the root causes of these issues goes beyond the scope of the CMS. Habitat loss, overexploitation, climate change, and pollution are all induced by human activities. Without questioning our economic systems and production methods, we have little chances of effectively protecting migratory species and biodiversity in the long run. We urgently need to rethink the ways we move, build, eat, consume, work, live, and interact with nature so that birds and beasts can continue travelling across the Earth for many more years to come.

Featured image: Sergey Dereliev

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The post ‘Nature Knows No Borders’: UN Conference on Migratory Species Concludes With Landmark Agreements appeared first on Earth.Org.

In the Bay of Biscay, which lies along the French Atlantic coast, thousands of dolphins and porpoises die every year, trapped in fishing nets. In January 2024, France introduced a one-month ban on nearly all commercial fishing in the area to protect dolphins against the risk of regional extinction.

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Referred to by three environmental NGOs in March 2023, the Council of State, the highest jurisdiction in France, ordered the government to close certain fishing areas within six months to protect dolphins and porpoises, thousands of which die every year from bycatch, the accidental capture of non-targeted animals during fishing activities.

In response, the State Secretary for the Sea Hervé Berville in October published a draft decree introducing a one-month ban on fishing for each of the next three years, starting in 2024. However, the decree was filled with exemptions, and only applied to certain types of nets and vessels. In December, the Council of State judged that these exemptions prevented the ban from having any significant chance of reducing the mortality of small cetaceans to a sustainable level.

The Council maintained the implementation of a four-week ban, which started on January 22 and lasted until February 20, 2023. However, the numerous initial exemptions were suspended. The ban still applied to purse seines, a method involving deploying a large wall of nets around schools of fish, which was initially excluded despite being responsible for 20% of accidental captures of dolphins in the area between 2019 and 2021.

The Council of State also revoked the exceptions that were planned for ships equipped with on-board cameras or acoustic deterrent devices – which are already mandatory for most at-risk vessels since 2020. According to the Council, these devices must be combined with a closed fishing period and cannot replace it.

Only ships of less than eight meters were still allowed to fish in the area during the ban. An exemption also remained for vessels using Danish seines, although this method – also known as “Scottish seine” or “fly dragging” – is highly controversial and accused of destroying the seabed, fish populations, and artisanal fishing communities.As a result of the ban, hundreds of fishing vessels had to stay at the dock for a month, including about 450 French ships as well as foreign vessels navigating in French waters. Had the decree been applied from the Secretary of the Sea with its many exemptions, only a dozen ships would have been affected by the ban.

Bycatch: The First Threat to Dolphin Populations in the Bay of Biscay

The four-week ban offered some respite to the marine mammals of the Bay of Biscay, in a period that is usually the most deadly for dolphins. During the winter months, plankton in the sea multiply, attracting sardines and anchovies. Dolphins as well as predators like bass, hake, and cod are fond of these little fish. And humans are fond of the latter. Dolphins hunt in the same waters as fishing vessels, and often end up trapped in nets they cannot see. Unable to free themselves, a lot of them suffocate and drown.

This is the fate of nearly 90% of all dolphins found stranded every year on the Atlantic coast. Their washed-up bodies bear the obvious marks of their accidental capture in giant nylon nets. More rarely, beached dolphins are found mutilated. According to Lamya Essemlali, President of Sea Shepherd France, this happens either because their meat has been consumed or because someone attempted to sink them to hide evidence of capture.

Among the fishing techniques used in the area, some are particularly risky for cetaceans: bottom trawls (large nets pulled by a boat which scrape on the ocean floor), midwater trawls (large net towed by one or two boats which moves between the surface and the seabed), bottom-set gillnets (nets vertically suspended in the water, anchored to the seabed), and trammel-nets (similar to a gillnet but with three layers of netting).

Bycatch is one of the primary causes of mortality of short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) in the Bay of Biscay. Other animals are affected, too, like harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) and Atlantic bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). 

Hundreds of cetaceans are found dead along the French coasts every year, including a large majority of common dolphins. But this already worrying figure only partially reflects the number of marine mammals killed from bycatch. Scientists from France’s PELAGIS Observatory for marine megafauna conservation estimate that between 5,000 and 10,000 dolphins die every year, with their carcasses sinking deep in the ocean without ever reaching the shore.

The situation has become so critical that small cetaceans are at risk of regional extinction. In 2019, the excess mortality rate of common dolphins due to accidental captures in the area was 1.49%, according to data from the French National Biodiversity Observatory. Although this figure may seem low, an excess mortality rate of 0.78% is enough to threaten the survival of this species.

Dolphins can live up to 40 years, but only mate between eight and 15 years old. They have one calf at a time, after a long 10-month gestation. This low reproduction rate makes them extremely vulnerable. At the current pace, the population of common dolphins in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean could become extinct within 40 to 50 years, even though the species is protected under the European Union Habitats Directive.

A Ban Contested by the Fishing Industry

While the newly adopted ban aims to protect dolphins, it leaves fishermen in an uncertain situation, with a significant portion of them suddenly prohibited from working. The ban was officially adopted less than a month before it began, leaving the fishing sector little time to prepare.

On January 19, Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu announced that vessels affected by the ban would receive financial aid amounting to 80-85% of their normal revenue, and that fishmongers would get support covering up to 75% of their losses. These benefits should be disbursed by early March, provided that the government receives approval from the European Commission. However, the ban has now come to an end and fishers have still not been able to apply for compensation.

Despite the promise of financial aid, fishermen and workers employed in the fishing industry have widely contested the ban. On January 31, 2024, around 20 fishermen gathered in Nantes in front of the Interregional Sea Directorate, dumping frozen fish and fishing nets on the building to express their frustration against a form of “regulatory pressure.”

“We are being suffocated. We identify with the farmers’ struggle. The pressure from French and European regulations is unbearable,” said David Le Quintrec, a fisherman from Lorient.

As a matter of fact, the fishermen’s outrage adds to an already tense context with farmers taking to the streets in France and across Europe in recent weeks. In the same way that many farmers protest environmental regulations, fishermen feel like the ban in the Bay of Biscay is “the last straw” that comes on top of rising operating costs and tightening national and EU standards, such as the reduction of fishing quotas voted in Brussels last December.

More on the topic: Explainer: Why Are European Farmers Protesting the EU’s Green Rules?

The French National Fisheries Committee’s (CNPMEM) president Olivier Le Nézet has even denounced “extremist” NGOs, accusing them of wanting to “wipe out our jobs and our trade by making the Bay of Biscay, where we have worked for centuries, a no-fishing zone.” He also asserted that common dolphins are “not endangered” in the area.

However, even if the ban is prompted by the need to protect cetaceans, it will also benefit fishermen in the long run. The root problem facing the sector is that fish populations have collapsed, making fishing harder and more expensive. This ban will give the fish time to grow and reproduce. 

“Populations of commercial fish in poor condition, such as sole, whiting, blue whiting and Atlantic mackerel, will find some relief”, explained Jérôme Graefe, a legal expert at France Nature Environnement. Ultimately, this will have a positive influence on the entire industry.

A Long Way to Go for the Protection of Dolphins

Fishermen believe they are already doing enough to protect dolphins, by equipping their ships with cameras and acoustic deterrent devices, and feel misled by the Council of State’s decision to revoke the exemption for vessels equipped with this technology. 

“The fishermen have shown great willingness by putting in the effort to be ready to sail in the required conditions”, said José Jouneau, Chairman of the Pays de la Loire Regional Fisheries Committee. “Today, 95% of them are equipped. Those who aren’t yet are waiting for the equipment to become available,” he added.

While these efforts must be acknowledged as they are essential both to keep dolphins away from fishing fleets and to document bycatch – which most fishermen still do not declare – such technological innovations are, as it is in many instances, insufficient to produce significant sustainable transformations. In fact, the massive deployment of acoustic repellents could have detrimental effects. By excluding dolphins from their feeding grounds in vast areas, there is a risk that they will no longer be able to meet their vital food requirements.

Besides, NGOs and scientists argue that, while a one-month ban is a historical first step, it is still far from enough to protect dolphins. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) assessed the efficacy of 15 different mitigation scenarios for protecting common dolphins in the Bay of Biscay. It concluded that the minimal requirement for ensuring the long-term viability of dolphin populations is a four-month closure of all commercial fishing in the Bay of Biscay, ideally three months in winter and one month in summer every year. Anything below that, including the current one-month ban, is not enough to sufficiently reduce dolphin deaths.

While it is still too soon to assess the success of this ban, the number of common dolphins found washed up on the shore are already showing promising results. To date, only 77 strandings have been recorded on the French Atlantic coast since January 2024, as opposed to 344 in January and February 2023. Further studies will be required to complete this data and estimate the effectiveness of the ban in protecting dolphin populations over the long term.

What’s the Best Approach?

There is no quick fix to the bycatch issue in the Bay of Biscay. Long-term, structural transformations require “contesting dominant social and political structures, and to reconsider the macro-economic dynamics of food production, as well as the deep cultural patterns interrelated with these dynamics,” according to researchers from La Rochelle University.

But protecting marine animals cannot be achieved without fishers. The lack of consideration of fishers’ needs and voice can reinforce conflict and undermine the success of mitigating initiatives. Instead, policies could be designed to empower fishermen, by encouraging experimentation of gentler fishing methods with a lower impact on ecosystems, for instance through economic incentives. Fishers can also provide valuable knowledge to help scientists and policymakers understand and prevent bycatch.

Individual consumption also needs to be questioned. One of the main reasons dolphins get caught in nets in the first place is because people want to keep eating large amounts of fish. The perverse effect of the implementation of bans on commercial fishing is that consumers might turn to imported fish, contributing to overfishing and potentially bycatch in other parts of the world. Reducing fish consumption, at least during certain periods of the year, might be part of the solution.

It would be an illusion to believe that dolphins can be protected while continuing to deploy giant nets throughout the Bay of Biscay. Questioning fish consumption, fishing methods and more largely the interrelations between society and marine ecosystems are essential steps towards transforming the fishing sector and protecting small cetaceans and fish populations alike.

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The post Why Did France Introduce a One-Month Ban on Commercial Fishing in the Bay of Biscay? appeared first on Earth.Org.

On January 9, 2024, Norway’s Parliament approved a government plan to open a large part of its seabed to mining exploration, despite uncertain environmental impacts of deep-sea mining and warnings from scientists and activists.

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In January 2023, a resource assessment commissioned by the Norwegian ministry of Petroleum and Energy found a substantial amount of metals and minerals on the seabed of Norway’s continental shelf. Six months later, energy minister Terje Aasland was given the green light from the government to start exploiting mineral resources in the Norwegian continental shelf. 

The ministry’s recommendations specify that opening up an area will not automatically lead to extraction. At first, licences will be granted for commercial exploration activity, which is defined in the Seabed Minerals Act as “the search for and mapping of mineral deposits for commercial purposes”. It is only after exploration has been carried out that companies will be able to apply for an extraction licence, which the ministry will approve if it judges that the extraction can be done in a sustainable manner.

Last December, Norway’s governing parties – the Labour Party and the Centre Party – secured a majority on deep sea mining in the Storting, the Norwegian Parliament, with the support of the Conservative Party and the Progress Party. They agreed on an opening but with a stricter framework: while exploration licences can already be granted, the first plans for the actual extraction of seabed minerals will have to be approved by the parliament, and not only by the ministry.

This proposal was finally approved by the Norwegian parliament – better known as Storting – on January 9, 2024, with 80 votes in favour and 20 against, making Norway, already Western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer, one of the first countries in the world to open the door to deep-sea mining. 

The Ministry of Energy is set to start awarding extraction licenses this year.

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The decision to only allow exploration for the time being and not actual extraction offers a “small glimmer of hope,” according to Lønne Fjærtoft, global policy lead for WWF’s No Deep Seabed Mining Initiative. “This gives parliament the opportunity to say no to exploitation, which is a significant change to the government’s proposal”, she said in a statement.

Although extraction might not begin just yet, the parliament’s decision remains a significant first step, a prerequisite for the potential exploitation of the seafloor by private companies.

The highly controversial move comes as opposition grows against seabed mining worldwide. In November, 120 European Union (EU) lawmakers wrote an open letter to the Norwegian MPs, urging them to reject the project, while a petition received over 500,000 signatures. Over 800 marine scientists and policy experts across the world also called for a pause to deep-sea mining. 

“The risk of large-scale and permanent loss of biodiversity, ecosystems, and ecosystem functions, necessitates a pause of all efforts to begin mining of the deep sea”, their statement says. 24 countries are calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, with France calling for a full ban. On the day of the vote, a group of protesters gathered outside the Parliament in Oslo. “They are opening a very new, vulnerable and enormous area that has been under-explored by scientists,” Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle of Greenpeace Norway told AFP.

A Fragile, Underexplored Ecosystem

The vote effectively opens 280,000 square kilometres (108,100 square miles) of seabed to mining exploration, a gigantic area larger than the United Kingdom, deep under the sea, above the Arctic circle for the most part. Nestled between Iceland and Svalbard, the area stretches along the Northern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a huge underwater mountain wall rising from the vast abyssal plain. The highest summits reach around 1,500 metres (4,921 feet) below the surface, while some areas can be up to 4,000 metres (13,123 feet) deep. Along the ridge, ice cold water encounters intense heat emanating from subterranean magma, giving rise to volcanic eruptions and tall chimneys spewing toxic smoke.

Life conditions at such depths are particularly extreme, with high pressure, below zero water temperature and few nutrients. And yet, the gloomy depths host a great variety of enigmatic creatures and diverse life forms. In fact, the deep-sea contains the greatest biodiversity on Earth, much of which is still unknown.Deep-sea organisms like corals and sponges inhabit the sea mounts and slopes. Many of them are only found in the Arctic and nowhere else in the world. Certain places are covered in so-called “sponge grounds”, dense communities of sponges that provide a home for other animals like fish, crustaceans, octopi, starfish and snails. Most animals here feed on marine snow, a constant rain of organic detritus that has been eaten, digested and excreted many times, sinking into the depths from the upper layers of the ocean.

Manganese crusts, formed by dissolved metals naturally present in seawater that slowly accumulate over time, can also be found on these seamounts. Manganese crusts contain various metals of interest to the deep-sea mining industry, such as cobalt, iron, titanium, and rare earths. This means that sponge grounds and their strange inhabitants could potentially be affected by mineral extraction.

Another potential source of minerals on the Norwegian continental shelf are hydrothermal vents. Seawater seeps into cracks in the Earth’s crust where it gets heated up to hundreds of degrees and mixed with dissolved minerals and metals. When the hot water is expelled back into cold seawater, the minerals solidify rapidly and accumulate overtime, eventually creating chimney-like structures. These mineral deposits are called polymetallic sulphides and contain valuable resources for the mining industry like copper, zinc, gold, silver, and cobalt.

Active hydrothermal vents do not only create precious minerals but also support rare endemic biodiversity living in symbiosis with special bacteria that can derive energy from the chemicals expelled from the vents, in a process called chemosynthesis. Species of shrimp, small snails, crustaceans, tube worms, and anemones rely on these bacteria to live in this extreme environment.

Norway is not planning on exploiting these active vents but will focus on the inactive ones where the thermal activity has died out. There are limited studies on inactive vent sites but, according to Mari Heggernes Eilertsen, who researches deep-sea biology at the University of Bergen (UiB), it is not necessarily straightforward to define when a field is inactive, as there can still be outflows that sustain life in specialised creatures. The specialised fauna can also be replaced by typical species of the surrounding deep sea, such as sponges or anemones, and potentially by other unique species endemic to these inactive vents.

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Risks and Knowledge Gaps in Deep-Sea Mining

Due to the logical complexity of exploring the deep sea, data assessing the potential impacts on deep-sea mining is scarce and requires more research. There are still many uncertainties surrounding deep-sea ecosystems and their vulnerability to mining activities, and scientists are concerned that mining would have dramatic effects on marine biodiversity.

In order to extract minerals, enormous mining machines would scrap the seafloor like combine-harvesters. It is quite likely that many deep-sea organisms will be directly crushed and killed by the mining equipment. In addition, the machines would release sediment plumes in the water, poisoning and suffocating aquatic animals. Deep-sea mining could potentially destroy species and genetic resources before they have been fully studied or even discovered.

Mining activities could disrupt ecosystems in the long run, by impairing processes associated with feeding, growth and reproduction. The machines will generate sound and light pollution in the silent, dark world of the deep sea. Bioluminescence, light produced directly by deep-sea animals, is the only natural source of light in these ecosystems. The bright lights of the engines risk masking the ecological functions of bioluminescence and may even irreversibly damage the eyes of local organisms. Noise generated by mineral extraction is likely to reach the upper water column, thus potentially affecting many marine animals like certain species of whales and dolphins that rely on echolocation.

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The ocean is a great ally against climate change, absorbing around 30% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Microorganisms play a significant role in carbon sequestration in the deep sea, and their loss following mining activities might impact the ocean’s carbon cycle and reduce its ability to mitigate global warming. Not to mention the fact that mining activities will themselves emit planet-warming greenhouse gases as vessels and mining machines will require fuel consumption.

These impacts would be mostly generated by mineral extraction activities, as exploration alone is likely to have less significant impacts. However, it is not clear how large the investigated areas will be. Exploration machines and vessels will still produce noise and light pollution, and sampling might locally affect the seabed and the organisms that live on them. Overall, many uncertainties remain regarding the scale of the impacts mining exploration and extraction could have in the Norwegian deep-sea, as well as elsewhere in the world.

A Precautionary Approach?

The Norwegian Environment Agency, a government agency under the Ministry of Climate and Environment, criticised the government’s impact assessment and suggested it might even be violating the Seabed Minerals Act. According to the agency, the assessment does not provide a sufficient decision-making basis for allowing mineral exploration and extraction at sea, but shows significant knowledge gaps about nature, technology, and environmental effects.

The government argues that opening the area for exploration is a prerequisite for gaining knowledge about the environmental conditions in the area, in a “step-by-step approach” in the words of Energy Minister Terje Aasland. On the contrary, the Norwegian Environment Agency believes that the government rushed the process, ignoring important stages to ensure that the industry does not gain access to areas that should be protected.

Opening large parts of the continental shelf for exploration activity by private actors, whose ultimate interest is to drill the seabed for minerals, is not in line with a step-by-step, precautionary approach. If the government’s priority truly was to collect data on dumbo octopus and bioluminescent starfish, it could instead fund scientific studies to investigate and map areas before any permit for commercial exploration is granted. The Norway Institute of Marine Research estimates that around 5-10 years of research into impacts on species are needed.

A Green Transition Without Mining the Ocean

The Norwegian government’s main argument to allow deep-sea mining is that the minerals it would provide are essential to the green energy transition, though studies show the opposite. 

According to a 2024 report by the Environmental Justice Foundation, seabed mining is not needed for clean energy. Instead, more investment should go into a circular economy that recycles and reuses the minerals we already have, which could cut mineral demand by 58% between 2022 and 2050.

Destroying ecosystems that we only scarcely begin to understand can hardly be considered an acceptable way to meet climate targets. A real “green transition” cannot maintain the same extractive model that has driven climate change and biodiversity loss in the first place, the same mindset that has wiped out forests and dug craters into the earth. Mining the ocean floors could cause irreparable damage to nature, like it already does on land.

Norway’s decision to greenlight deep sea mining sets a dangerous international precedent, potentially justifying opening processes elsewhere in the world.

The deep dark depths of our oceans cannot be sacrificed in the name of clean energy. A successful and holistic approach to the ecological transition goes hand in hand with the preservation of life on Earth and the creatures below.

Featured image: Erling Svensen/Ocean Photo

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The post Norway Opens the Door to Deep-Sea Mining Exploration in the Arctic, But at What Environmental Cost? appeared first on Earth.Org.