Thread by @laurakaikkonen

❌Shallow-water mining undermines global sustainability goals ❌

Happy to share our new article in @Trends_Ecol_Evo with @ea_virtan

Read here #openaccess: cell.com/trends/ecology…

📜In a nutshell 🧵⬇️

2/ Global infrastructure development & transition to low-carbon technologies call for new solutions to increasing mineral demand. Seabed mining is often framed as a sustainable alternative to traditional terrestrial mining, with hopes for lower environmental & societal risks

3/ You may have heard of plans for #deepseamining, but mineral resources of the near-shore continental shelves around the world have also been suggested to be a low-risk option to satisfy our resource demands due to lower extraction costs and concerns surrounding DSM

4/ This map shows a part of the known deposits on the continental shelf, which have extraction potential defined by their proximity to coast and the depth of the resource

5/ Why mine the shallow (<200m) seabed? Compared w/ traditional mining and costly deep-sea operations, shallow-water mining may save operational costs: Mining takes place closer to shore and uses already existing technology + dredging shallow seafloor minerals is often efficient

6/ Shallow-water mining projects are already underway in e.g., Namibia and Indonesia, and new projects have been proposed in Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden. Iron-manganese nodules (shown below) are one of the mineral types targeted by mining interests

7/ We had come across several claims about how shallow-water mining can be the environmentally and socially sustainable alternative to traditional mining, but without any thorough evaluations of the impacts of different mining practices to back these claims 🔍

8/ Problems: While shallow mineral resources are attractive from an €€ standpoint, shallow-water mining results in inevitable biodiversity loss and affects ecosystem integrity through habitat loss, removal of seafloor organisms, and sediment dispersal from mining operations

9/ 📚Despite a few existing mining projects, shallow-water mining has not been previously considered in many areas, and its environmental regulation is inadequately reflected in national legislations = danger zone for managing these activities

10/ Plans to increase seabed mining in coastal areas conflict with international conservation and sustainability objectives, which have updated targets to prevent biodiversity loss ❌

11/ As shallow-water ecosystems are already under multiple other stressors from existing human activities, pollution, and the impacts of climate change, even seemingly small-scale mining activities can have drastic effects on marine ecosystems especially at local scales 🌩️

12/ Shallow-water mining activities should not be considered as the silver bullet to resolve the growing global need for metals, but the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of mining should be thoroughly studied before further claims about sustainability of operations 👊

13/ In light of international commitments to halt biodiversity loss & to comply with #SDGs, we need more precaution to shallow-water mining. Even if technology would allow it, unrestricted expansion of maritime activities does not align with sustainable use of ocean resources 🌊