President Donald Trump’s executive order to issue permits for deep-sea mining in the U.S. and international waters has drawn criticism from environmental advocates and international leaders.
The United Nations-affiliated body that governs the seabed released a statement Saturday warning that actions taken outside its regulations would violate international law. The United States is not a member of this body, known as the International Seabed Authority, or ISA.
Already, a company is seeking U.S. approval to mine in a zone between Hawaiʻi and Mexico that holds trillions of mineral deposits containing valuable metals.
Solomon Pili Kahoʻohalahala is a former state lawmaker from Lānaʻi turned environmental advocate. He has worked with the ISA for the past three years.
Uncle Sol spoke with The Conversation at a WeWriteHI storytelling event on Saturday. He had just returned from New York, where he met with international leaders at the United Nations tasked with enacting the High Seas Treaty to protect the ocean.
He shared that despite the recent executive orders relating to deep-sea mining and commercial fishing, he remains hopeful.
Interview highlights
On President Trump’s executive order
SOLOMON PILI KAHOʻOHALAHALA: The opening up of the deep-sea mining comes with the same kind of premise that, you know, that the United States should be the leaders in gathering precious metals and it has no regard for what I described earlier in my presentation about the destructive processes involving deep-sea mining, and that it is really at the core of our genealogy, where now you're actually intruding into the place of our creation.
On bringing the identity of Indigenous people forward to the ISA
KAHOʻOHALAHALA: For the last three and a half years, participating directly with the ISA was to try and bring into that body more familiarity with Indigenous peoples and their connection to the sea, which was really void in all of their policies up until this point. So what we are doing is that we are trying to introduce into the body a sense of who we are, the people of Oceania, and that we have concerns about that same ocean that you are given responsibility to regulate, but in your regulations, you have paid no attention to that part which I present is our genealogy and our cultural creation, and that takes place in the deep sea. So by contrast, culture, to you at the ISA at this moment, is only about man-made things that are found under the ocean, and then I am referring to the creation of life itself, of which our moʻokūʻauhau, or genealogy, speaks of. So it has been three and a half years, but that concept of an Indigenous relationship to the ocean is beginning to have some support in the body.
On the High Seas Treaty
KAHOʻOHALAHALA: That treaty has to do with the management of the high seas in terms of marine protection. So what the scientists had said is that the Earth needs to set aside 30% of its resources like the ocean if we intend to continue to live in the manner we have at the rate of extraction that is necessary, unless we set aside 30% of our oceans that we will never, ever meet that kind of demand. And so we're on a decline. So this treaty was just passed in December of '24. It is now seeking to create the language that will put the treaty into force. What is important for us to know is that this isn't specifically about deep-sea mining, but this one is talking about creating protected areas in the high seas beyond the jurisdictions of nation states. So this is a new treaty. This is something that's beginning. And this last two weeks in New York City was the beginning conversations of language that's being introduced. I've been there intervening as well. And my point was that if there were ever a time that we were needed as Indigenous people for the ocean, it is this time, because the impacts are clear to us Indigenous people. But when you call for the support and the recognition of Indigenous knowledge, then this is the time not to just merely acknowledge Indigenous people as stakeholders, this is the time to integrate them, their experiences, their knowledge, into every facet of this treaty, so that there will be decision-making by the Indigenous people. And that is the importance of this treaty.
On Indigenous peoples partaking in international bodies
KAHOʻOHALAHALA: What is clear to me is that the United States does not represent the Indigenous people and its knowledge and its interests, and we need to be the ones to be our own advocates, our own support. But in the international arena, what is important is that if we can help to effect change within the body that is the decision-making body, that it doesn't require us to be attached to the United States. It only requires that we are able to transform the thinking of a body, and then the importance of why this is needed in these times, and then begin to effect change within the body by the specific language that they're intending to put together.
This interview aired on The Conversation on April 28, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
Hawaiʻi Public Radio exists to serve all of Hawai‘i, and it's the people of Hawai‘i who keep us independent and strong. Help keep us strong to serve you in the future. Donate today.
