An unprecedented global increase in demand for minerals is being seen as countries look to become carbon neutral. This green energy revolution is heavily reliant on raw materials, such as cobalt, and demand is now fueling exploration into deep sea mining. However, the biodiversity of areas, such as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the central and eastern Pacific, is poorly understood.
Commercial deep-sea mining is currently prohibited in areas beyond national jurisdiction, but companies are allowed to run exploratory operations in such areas to assess their mineral wealth and measure environmental baselines. The CCZ is an area of the deep sea spanning up to six million km2 roughly the width of the continental United States between Hawaii and Mexico and it alone currently has 17 contracts for mineral exploration covering 1.2 million km2. However, despite initial mineral exploration beginning in the 1960’s, baseline biodiversity knowledge of the region has been severely lacking until recently.
In a new paper researchers attempt to report on the life of the CCZ. A rapid growth in taxonomic surveys for the area which began in the early 1970’s has allowed them to conduct the first comprehensive synthesis of CCZ biodiversity and create an inventory vital to future assessments of environmental impacts from any mining activity.
Coauthor Adrian Glover, Merit Researcher Natural History Museum, comments, ‘Taxonomy is the most important knowledge gap we have when studying these unique habitats. We have to know what lives in these regions before we can begin to understand how to protect such ecosystems.
‘We are on the eve of some of the largest deep sea mining operations potentially being approved. It is imperative that we work with the companies looking to mine these resources to ensure any such activity is done in a way that limits its impact upon the natural world.’
The paper How many metazoan species live in the world’s largest mineral exploration region? is published in Current Biology.
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Posted On: 26/05/2023