To compete with China, India has intensified its exploration agenda by a slew of initiatives taken by the Geological Survey of India. However, India has missed out on the crucial strategy to offset resultant environment damage
The key to hegemony over global economy is increasingly depending upon the control over mineral and rare metal deposits, especially that located on the ocean floor. These deep sea natural resources, especially poly-metallic sulphides, contain valuable minerals such as gold, silver, zinc, besides rare-earth metals that are a common ingredient in modern-day electronic devices and gadgets. In a progressively tech-savvy world, the significance of these resources is forcing countries to upgrade their under-sea mineral exploration and extraction capabilities. However, the rush to compete and dominate the deep-sea resources is proving costly for a fragile marine ecology.
Studies have established that the technology used for deep-sea mining violates the sea floor by destroying the top centimetres of the seabed and introducing light to an environment where darkness preserves precious and rare life forms. As the ores mixed with seawater are processed in surface support vehicles for extracting minerals, this creates massive swirls of debris and sediments that have the capability to wipe out all life forms in its wake. The treated seawater, of different salinity, temperature containing trace amounts of toxic chemicals is eventually dumped in the sea, which profoundly impacts the ecosystem.
During the mining operations, the site requires closure; this results in restricted movement of species both at deep and shallow parts of the sea, adding to this is the huge machines and vessels involved in the mining process that tend to cause inadvertent introduction of invasive species, cause noise, air pollution and vibration and result in fluid leaks and discharges from vessels and equipment. Combined together, these factors further contaminate the marine environment and irrevocably alter the natural habitat which is rendered unfit to support the benthic species anymore. This effectively marks the end of many known and unknown species of life forms.
China is a global leader in deep sea exploration and extraction capability, with a control over 90 per cent of rare earth metals and is utilising this edge to increase strategic dominance in international waters. In 2011, the International Seabed Authority, a regulatory body of the United Nations, permitted the China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association to undertake exploration for poly-metallic sulphides in a 10,000 square kilometre area in the South-West Indian Ocean. This move resulted in an immense discomfort for the Indian strategic community, which saw the development as a geo-strategic gambit aimed at extending China’s footprint in the Indian Ocean Region.
Pushed to counter this increasing Chinese dominance, India has intensified its exploration agenda by a slew of initiatives through the Geological Survey of India including the up-gradation of its exploration ships besides, commissioning the rare earth mineral processing plant in Odisha in collaboration with Japan. However, in a hurry to compete with China in the race to extract more from the seabeds, India has missed out on the crucial strategy to offset the resultant environmental damage occurring from deep-sea mining. It is essential that the policymakers recognise the need for responsible growth that accounts for the environment.
In fact a strategy to mitigate environmental damage due to deep-sea mining seems to be absent even at a global level. This was made evident by the recent development in July 2014 when the International Seabed Authority issued seven new licenses to explore the floors of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans. This decision, sent ripples across the world amongst scientists and environmentalists. To make matters worse, though the ISA stipulates its mining contractors to follow necessary measures to prevent and control pollution during exploration activity, it does not have regulations in place for commercial mining.
India can make its choice on whether to join the race for exploitation or set global benchmarks in environmentally-conscious exploration standards. For this, it can take inspiration from New Zealand, which earlier this year rejected a proposal to mine iron ore from the seabed offshore the South Taranaki Bight. Similarly, Australia’s Northern Territory banned seabed mining in its jurisdiction till 2015 due to lack of knowledge on environmental impacts of deep sea mining. So did Namibia, which has put a moratorium on phosphate mining in deep sea pending more studies on the environmental effects.
The race to the bottom of the sea for vast natural riches through deep sea mining cannot be at the cost of the benthic species that have been instrumental in creating rare mineral resources. India needs to ensure that the exploration is based on well-researched systems and technologies that ensure preservation of this fragile marine ecology.