Hawaiʻi has joined California, Oregon and Washington in banning deep-sea mining in state waters. The new law passed through the state Legislature with broad support from environmental groups, Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners, and state agencies like the Department of Health and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
“This is one of those rare issues where everybody seems to have come together, and that's something that you don't see every day,” said Sen. Chris Lee, who introduced the local seabed mining measure that Gov. Josh Green signed into law on Monday.
Although Hawaiʻi is presenting a unified front on seabed mining, its influence may be limited.
The International Seabed Authority oversees deep-sea mining and is in the process of developing regulations for the nascent underwater industry. The ISA is aiming to have those regulations on the books by 2025, which could pave the way for the first-ever permits for commercial mining of the seafloor.
Since the United States has yet to ratify the High Seas Treaty, it is not a voting member of the ISA. That’s a problem for Hawaiʻi, said conservationist and former Hawaiʻi politician Solomon Pili Kahoʻohalahala.
“We are under the occupation of the United States, and we happen to be the island nation that is in the middle of the largest ocean on this planet Earth,” said Kahoʻohalahala. “There is no one that is speaking on our behalf, not even the United States.”
Kahoʻohalahala has been attending ISA meetings over the last two years as an observer, and he has been pushing the UN body to take a closer look at the importance of the Pacific to Indigenous peoples.
Right now, Kahoʻohalahala said that the ISA has limited its definition of what constitutes underwater cultural heritage to tangible artifacts, like human remains or archeological items like shipwrecks.
Kahoʻohalahala is arguing that Native Hawaiians have an intangible, but equally significant, connection to the ocean. He cited the Kumulipo, or Native Hawaiian creation chant, which traces the origin of life to the ʻuku koʻakoʻa, the coral polyp in the depths of the sea.
“Here is a process of deep sea mining that is intruding into that place of our creation,” Kahoʻohalahala said. “And at no time has the authorities who are seeking to allow for this process of deep sea mining have ever considered our cultural input, our cultural genealogy, our cultural perspective.”
Proponents of seabed mining say the sea floor's rich resources — including minerals like cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese — are crucial for batteries to power the transition to clean energy. But many scientists and environmentalists say without a better understanding of how deep-sea mining would affect ocean ecosystems, it’s too great a risk.
Neil Nathan, a project scientist with the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory in California, hopes that the ISA hits the breaks before launching a new industry that could damage “one of the last remaining pristine places on our Earth.”
Much of the conversation around deep-sea mining involves the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a huge swath of ocean between Hawaiʻi and Mexico. The seafloor in this zone is littered with fist-sized rocks, called polymetallic nodules, that contain valuable minerals.
Nathan said mining these rocks, which took millions of years to form, would be like taking a “lawnmower” to the seabed, churning up sediment and disturbing unique ocean life. He said it's unclear when, or even if, the surrounding ecosystem would recover.
“A lot more science needs to be done for us to understand what the range of those impacts may be,” Nathan said.
The ISA’s Council will reconvene next week. Kahoʻohalahala expects the council to deliberate on the ISA’s definition of cultural heritage, and he hopes the ISA will take steps to recognize Native Hawaiians’ connection to the Pacific.
“There are many other island nations throughout Oceania that are also supporting the same position that we have because we are culturally aligned in our connection to the deep sea,” Kahoʻohalahala said.
Meanwhile, Hawaiʻi Rep. Ed Case is leading calls for the U.S. to join a growing chorus of countries calling for a halt on mineral extraction from the seafloor.
In a letter sent last month, Case and 11 other members of Congress urged President Biden to support a “precautionary pause” on any seabed mining and “prioritize scientific research, environmental protection and precaution, and the cultural importance of the deep ocean to Native Hawaiians and many indigenous peoples across the Pacific.”
Kahoʻohalahala is encouraged both by Case’s actions and Hawaiʻi's recent ban, as well as the shared sense of stewardship he’s found with other Indigenous communities across the Pacific.
“One hundred years from now, we hope that the children who are going to be the caretakers of this ocean and this planet will be looking back upon this time and saying that our kūpuna did well to make sure that the Earth was protected and cared for,” Kahoʻohalahala said.
