French Polynesia: Murky Waters — The Challenge and Risks of Deep-Sea Mining “Development”

While the total land area of French Polynesia is 3,521 square kilometers (1,359 sq mi), with a population of less than 300,000, French Polynesia holds the largest contiguous sea area in the world, namely an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) totaling more than 4.5 million km. The seas are literally and figuratively the source of life in French Polynesia. Yet the complexity of ocean ecosystems, and French Polynesia’s relationship therewith, is also a source of vulnerability. It demands attention to emerging efforts by countries and companies around the world to turn the deep sea into an area of large-scale resource exploitation, particularly of the minerals nestled along its seabed. Although deep-sea minerals like copper, nickel, and cobalt contain the promise of fueling the green energy transition and averting some of the serious human right and labor abuses associated with mining on land, they also risk damaging fragile ocean ecosystems with unknown and irreversible repercussions, particularly on coastal and island peoples. 

The objective of the Capstone project is to address the environmental and other challenges and risks of deep-sea mining. The team hopes to offer the people of French Polynesia, where unemployment is at 20% and many of its youth feel compelled to move to France, viable and promising economic opportunities, including furthering the potential of the blue (sea) economy, which needs to be protected from overfishing and pollution, but also biological/medical possibilities, to counter the lure of deep-sea mining profits.