SOPAC, an organization intended, in part, to assess coastal protection and geohazards seems, instead, to be working on behalf of Lockheed Martin. Currently, the U.S. military contractor is negotiating with Fiji’s Bainimarama administration to fast track and sponsor new legislation that would allow the private U.S.-based transnational Titan to delve into experimental deep seabed mining.
Because the United States has not ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), U.S. industries cannot engage in deep seabed mining in international waters, outside of a country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
In the 1970s, before UNCLOS, Lockheed had conducted an analysis of the nodules found in the Clarion-Clipperton zone, just below the Hawaiian Islands. Now, large industrial mining companies are jockeying for position to be the first to successfully vacuum up Pacific resources, which include rich deposits of gold, silver, copper, nickel, manganese, and rare earth minerals.
Little is known about the deep seabed, and no conclusive environmental study has been completed. What is known is that the life that thrives in this unusual environment is sulfur-based rather than oxygen-based and we do not know how this sulfuric sediment will impact ocean bio-diversity.
There is also no regulatory oversight guiding the technology that seeks to raze the deep ocean floor and suck up the minerals.
SOPAC (the Applied Geoscience and Technology Division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community) began operation on Jan. 1, 2011, and was established by the Pacific Island Leaders Forum to include the assessment of the potential of ocean and onshore mineral resources, coastal protection and management, and geohazard assessment.
However, with no conclusive Environmental Impact Assessment or statement, the concern that SOPAC is working on behalf of Lockheed Martin, one or the world’s largest private military contractors, should not only betray the trust of Pacific Island Forum countries, but also damage the legitimacy of the scientific community at large.
Courtesy of Foreign Policy in Focus, www.fpif.org
