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Context map showing the Cook Islands manganese nodule fields in relation to neighbouring countries and the Clarion Clipperton Zone [Figure constructed by McCormack (2016) and Petterson and Tawake (2016)].
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In many of the Pacific Islands, local communities have long-held cultural and spiritual attachments to the sea, in particular to species and specific marine areas, processes, habitats, islands, and natural seabed formations. Traditional knowledge, customary marine management approaches and integrated relationships between biodiversity, ecosystems a...
Citations
... In a similar manner to the MSP process, DSM was also praised by foreign actors as a sustainable alternative to terrestrial mining (Dunn et al., 2018). Against the backdrop of the ongoing financial challenges that ensued following the collapse of the tourism sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, advocates of DSM argue that it is the new economic frontier that can offer Cook Islanders long-term economic sustainability and reduce their dependence on foreign aid and the volatile tourism sector (Tilot et al., 2021). Nevertheless, community members in Rarotonga expressed their concerns regarding DSM, as evidenced in the following excerpt: ...
... However, the inherent dissonance between global conservation paradigms and the integrated social, cultural and physical conception of the environment by Pacific Islands societies embodied in ra'ui render a legal pluralistic approach inappropriate. As Tilot et al. (2021) point out, cultural understandings should be integrated into the process of MSP rather than an elusive participatory approach with indigenous communities. ...
A rapidly expanding area of marine space in the Pacific is being assessed under a process known as Marine Spatial Planning (MSP). Through the political process, MSP brings together an assemblage of national governments, private organizations and local communities to define how marine spaces should be governed. MSP results in numerous new marine spatial categories that delimit an area according to the respective principals and rules decided upon. The authors of this article argue that traditional powers to make and enforce decisions concerning the governance of marine spaces have been weakened through the political process of MSP in the Pacific. The responses that emerged from conducting qualitative semi‐structured interviews with participants in Fiji and the Cook Islands indicate that indigenous marine authority is being undermined through manipulation of the MSP process. The findings further revealed an underlying recognition that the MSP process has proven to be incapable of equitably weighing indigenous Pacific Islanders’ interests in relation to the economic, environmental and security interests of external ocean stakeholders. The authors further argue that external ocean stakeholders can successfully pursue their own objectives through the MSP process in ways that bypass indigenous authority.
... Deep-sea biodiversity contributes to globally diffuse ES that are experienced locally and give rise to 'place-based' traditions and cultures [11][12][13] , such as the availability of species (e.g., sharks, marine mammals, tuna) important for cultural practices and knowledge 14 . These 'places' often refer to land-based locations, yet demonstrate the inextricable dependency of humans globally to the deep-sea and the ocean system. ...
... Further, Indigenous knowledge systems, cultures and spiritualities, and those of local communities often do not separate humans from nature, and deeply value the health and ongoing life of the full ecological system. These profound humannature-spirit connections 15 are commonly missing or weakly included from the basis of evidence used to inform decisions 14,16,17 . This omission is attributed to the intangible 'place-based' qualities of these ES and a lack of detail to identify and quantify the components of biodiversity, at different scales, that control these relationships. ...
... En este escenario, es que la minería en aguas profundas surge como alternativa, actividad que representa las prácticas de exploración, extracción, transporte y procesamiento de minerales recuperados del fondo del océano y que transitan a través de la columna de agua hasta la superficie (Tilot et al., 2021). Según las estimaciones realizadas, el fondo del océano posee grandes reservas de minerales (Hein et al., 2013) que podrían satisfacer la demanda proyectada y así también, posibilitar la transición hacia tecnologías bajas en carbono y alcanzar los objetivos de desarrollo sustentable (Hyman et al., 2022;Miller et al., 2021). ...
... Por otro lado, un creciente cuerpo de literatura crítica con la minería en aguas profundas argumenta sobre los impactos negativos de esta industria en el océano (Carver et al., 2020;Childs, 2022;Deberdt & James, 2024;Putten et al., 2023;Zaar, 2024), dando cuenta del rol que posee el océano para la absorción y secuestro de carbono, la regulación del clima global y alojar una rica biodiversidad (Hallgren & Hansson, 2021), la destrucción y eliminación del hábitat de múltiples especies endémicas (Cuyvers et al., 2018), el carácter no renovable de los minerales extraídos y la alteración de ciclos biogeoquímicos (Boetius & Haeckel, 2018), afectaciones en el bienestar humano y medios de vida de las comunidades locales que poseen una profundidad conexión cultural, social, espiritual y económica con el océano (Tilot et al., 2021), y una serie de debates referidos a las prácticas mineras, implicancias morales y éticas de la extracción de minerales, la equidad de los beneficios y compensaciones de riesgos en la industria (Cuyvers et al., 2018). ...
La transición energética requiere minerales que cada vez son más difíciles de obtener en superficie, por lo que, el fondo del océano y en virtud de sus reservas de minerales, podría satisfacer la demanda proyectada y contribuir a alcanzar los objetivos de desarrollo sustentable. Sin embargo, existen discursos contradictorios respecto al rol de la sustentabilidad en la minería en aguas profundas. Por un lado, se plantea que tendría menor impacto que la minería en superficie. Por otro lado, se argumenta sobre los impactos negativos en el océano y afectaciones en el bienestar humano y medios de vida de las comunidades locales. Así, el objetivo es problematizar en torno a la relación entre sustentabilidad y minería en aguas profundas, a partir de la aproximación de la frontera de recursos y en particular, cómo se producen estos espacios, las narrativas predominantes, y cuáles son las dinámicas que subyacen en este proceso. Utilizando herramientas del análisis bibliométrico y análisis de contenido cualitativo, se pudo dar cuenta de narrativas dominantes sobre economía circular, biodiversidad, gobernanza, y economía azul en la literatura. Dinámicas que subyacen a la creación de la frontera de recursos son la búsqueda de nuevas fuentes de minerales, la necesidad de controlar los recursos, y posicionar al océano como una zona de desarrollo ilimitado, las que, configuran a la minería en aguas profundas como frontera emergente para la sustentabilidad.
... The progress of intelligent control [1], numerical simulation [2], information fusion [3], data mining [4], parameter optimization [5], virtual reality [6], artificial intelligence [7], high-end chips [8] and large-scale integrated circuits [9] has also brought about remarkable breakthroughs in the technologies of intelligent underwater vehicles. Intelligent underwater vehicles are applicable to operations in harsh environments which divers and equipment have difficulty accessing, such as during deep-sea resource exploration [10], submarine oil and gas pipeline inspection [11], dam exploration [12], aircraft or shipwreck salvage [13], submarine cable maintenance [14] and submarine cable laying [15], etc. The prospects of intelligent underwater vehicles have been seen in both military and civilian fields [16][17][18][19], and they have become an important tool in different complex underwater tasks. ...
Intelligent underwater vehicles hover by way of a hovering control system. To provide design inputs and maneuver guidance, this study focused on the characteristics of intelligent underwater vehicles during hovering control with the propulsion system shut down, established a mathematical model of hovering control and determined injection and drainage functions based on optimal control theory. From analysis simulation experiments, the influence laws of control parameters, control timing and rate of injection and drainage control upon hovering control were deduced. It is proposed that, at the time of control parameter selection, the continuous injection and drainage rate at each time should be reduced as far as possible to relieve the demand on the volume of the reservoir when the requirement of depth control accuracy has been satisfied. In addition, the injection and drainage control should initiate when depth changes exceed 0.5 m. Suggestions are included on the minimum injection and drainage rate required for different initial disturbances. The proposed suggestions guide the design of hovering control systems and hovering control over intelligent underwater vehicles.
... Even more concerning are the mistakes in the draft regarding the categorization as major and severe, the former being considered higher than the latter in some documents. 9 Other socio-economic and political criticisms also encompass the decrease in mining revenue for Global South' mining regions (Deberdt, 2023), the legal limitations of deep sea mining (Kakee, 2020;Jaeckel, 2016), the impacts on the connectivity between insular communities and the ocean realm (Tilot et al., 2021), or the concerns surrounding ESG implementation (Kung et al., 2021). Increasingly, regional studies are conducted on the role that these regions can play in the development of DSM (in the case of the Africa Group, see Zongwe and Mutambara, 2023). ...
... climate regulation, many cultural services). Such ecosystem services arise from countless relationships between assets, operating cumulatively and synchronously across all spatial and temporal scales (Thurber et al., 2014;Drazen et al., 2020;Tilot et al., 2021;Melbourne-Thomas et al., 2023). Accordingly, key attributes of ABNJ include its position as the 'connector' of coastal environments and water masses to enable global ocean processes (e.g. ...
... Accordingly, the health and condition of ABNJ natural capital assets supports the cultural and spiritual wellbeing of groups located both at the coast and inland. A tangible illustration of this dependence is provided by the cultural significance of marine species that use these regions for part of their lifecycle such as sharks, marine mammals and tuna (Tilot et al., 2021). ...
... Other pressures from fishing in ABNJ relate to bycatch of nontarget species including seabirds, top predators and fishes. The removal of non-target species threatens associated direct benefits such as food and nutrition, spiritual wellbeing (Tilot et al., 2021) and opportunities for tourism and indirect benefits such as a healthy climate (Davison et al., 2013;Rhodes-Reese et al., 2021). As the complexity of ecosystems is reduced, through the removal of top predators, this corresponds with a reduced resilience of an ecosystem to adapt to other pressures such as changing ocean chemistry and temperature which exacerbates the risk of ecosystem service loss (Pauly et al., 1998;Myers and Worm, 2003;Davison et al., 2013;Daw et al., 2015;Cheung et al., 2018). ...
Degradation of the natural world and associated ecosystem services is attributed to a historical failure to include its ‘value’ in decision-making. Uncertainty in the quantification of the relationship between natural capital ‘assets’ that give rise to critical societal benefits and people is one reason for the omission of these values from natural resource management. As this uncertainty increases in marine systems and further still with distance from the coast, the connection between society and natural capital assets is less likely to be included adequately in decision-making. Natural capital assets of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), including those of the deep sea, are distant but are known to generate many benefits for society, from the diffuse and broad-scale benefits of climate regulation to the provision of wild fish for food. While our understanding of the precise relationships (the status of asset stocks, ecosystem functions and processes) that control the availability of ecosystem services and the flows of benefits is limited, this does not preclude opening a discourse on how these natural capital assets could best be managed to continue to benefit society. Here we apply a natural capital approach to the South East Atlantic ABNJ, one of the least scientifically understood regions of the planet, and develop a framework for risk assessment. We do this by describing the benefit flows from the natural capital assets of the region, appraising how activities are creating pressures on these flows and whether the controls for these pressures protect them. Our risk register highlights how governance currently favours the protection of direct (extractive) benefit flows from natural capital assets of the region, which are primarily targeted for financial benefit. Without a systems-based framework that can account for the cumulative pressures on natural capital assets their status, associated ecosystem services and benefits are at risk. Such an approach is essential to capture and protect the foundational and often diffuse connections between marine natural capital and global society.
... regarding the deep seabed 20 , positioning the territory within the international rush for deep-sea mining (Tilot et al., 2021;Childs, 2022). ...
... And we are in Wallis and Futuna, this is our domain, this is our heritage, this is our land, this is our ocean." (Ferrante & Hoatau, 20/05/2015) His declaration is perfectly in line with the idea of oceanic sovereignty over the sea, which is widely shared in the Polynesian region (Hau'ofa, 1994;Tilot et al., 2021), as well as with the idea that land and sea are a continuum (Bambridge, 2013), key elements of the fenua that cannot be separated by French legal dispositions. Sovereignty is expressed here in the form of a claim of ownership, understood in the organic relationship described above: the land and sea belong to the indigenous people, and the indigenous people belong to the land and sea because they "come from it". ...
The territory of the islands of ‘Uvea and Futuna is a paradox: its population generally claims that it has “never been colonized”, on the grounds that the kingship has been preserved and that the land is indigenous. This article shows that the autochthonous conception of sovereignty does indeed accommodate the political limitations imposed by the relationship with the State (since the préfet holds the executive power), as long as the fenua apparently remains under customary control. This belief in the persistence of indigenous sovereignty in a context marked by coloniality gives rise to variously expressed claims in ‘Uvea and Futuna, both in the public arena and in everyday life.
... The lack, insufficiency, or inefficiency of participatory mechanisms by the ISA have been discussed elsewhere. Shortcomings in participation include lack of consultation with a wide diversity of stakeholders, including indigenous peoples and coastal communities (Tilot et al., 2021), acknowledgment and response of stakeholder submissions (e.g., EIA -Guilhon et al., 2022) and engagement of stakeholders when implementing decisions (Ardron et al., 2023). Ignoring such participatory aspects as in line with EBM may ultimately compromise the legitimacy of the process (Jaeckel et al., 2023). ...
... Adopting a precautionary approach and implementing science-based decision-making are cornerstones of EBM and have great relevance to the context of DSM (Jaeckel, 2015;Guilhon et al., 2020;Christiansen et al., 2022). Additionally, other forms of knowledge, including those provided by indigenous peoples and local communities, should also be included in the context of DSM discussions and decision-making (Tilot et al., 2021;Amon et al., 2022;Guilhon et al., 2022), although not raised by any participant. ...
... Regarding knowledge, the highest rates of disagreement were obtained for the statement related to the acknowledgment of traditional/local/indigenous knowledge for informing decisionmaking processes. There is no reference to the use of traditional knowledge as part of the Mining Code (Guilhon et al., 2020;Tilot et al., 2021), despite the evidence that coastal communities can be exposed to the effects of activities taking place in ABNJ (Popova et al., 2019). Conversely, the acknowledgment of uncertainties and consideration of interdisciplinarity as part of the ISA regulatory framework seems to remain uncertain, as observed by more balanced responses obtained among those who agree and disagree with it. ...
The ocean is threatened by human activities, which undermine the health of its ecosystems. To overcome this scenario, there is a converging understanding that a more encompassing approach, such as Ecosystem-based Management (EBM), is essential to manage human activities. EBM implementation in scenarios of limited knowledge and potentially irreversible impacts, such as deep-sea mining (DSM), is thus highly appropriate, although the translation of this approach into practice is not intuitive and rather challenging. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), the organization with the mandate to award exploration and exploitation contracts for minerals on the international seabed, has recognized the need to incorporate EBM in its instruments but has not specified how to implement it. Through an online survey and in-depth interviews, ISA stakeholders have been inquired about their perception of the understanding, current status, implications, and opportunities of EBM for the deep-sea mining regime. The findings reveal that stakeholders perceive EBM as more related to ecological and impact aspects and less with participation, socio-ecological systems interlinks, and other forms of knowledge that are not scientific. Few respondents recognize EBM within the ISA, reporting its reflection in management instruments such as Regional Environmental Management Plans and Environmental Impact Assessments. No common definition exists, regarded as an obstacle to decision-making and EBM operationalization. According to them, opportunities to improve EBM implementation include collaboration with organizations already familiar with EBM, capacity development activities, workshops, and dedicated side events focusing on the issue. Finally, most of them recognize that a lack of consensus regarding EBM can impact decision-making and EBM operationalization, thus compromising ISA’s mandate. In this context, the clarification on what EBM entails for the seabed mining regime should be a matter of major interest to the ISA and all its stakeholders, as the mineral resources found in the seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdictions (the Area) are the common heritage of humankind, and therefore, its maintenance and benefits must be ensured to future generations.
... Mining (on land) contributes over one-third of government tax revenue and revenue from mining has resulted in high government spending. But inequality has been increasing, often attributed to conflicts arising from economic development in customary land and sea estates (Tilot et al. 2021, Kung et al. 2021, Bainton and Skrzypek 2021. A level of government dysfunction has been described by Bainton and Macintyre (2021) as an "absence of accountability among elected members and public servants" (p.107) at the local and provincial government level. ...
New marine industries that develop and grow in response to the changing demand for their products have the potential to exert pressure on fragile marine environments. These emerging industries can benefit local communities but equally can have negative environmental and socio-cultural impacts. The development of new and emerging industries, like deep seabed mining (DSM), requires the acceptance and involvement of local communities. Yet, the history of marine exploitation is imbued with conflicts between industries and local communities. This paper presents a DSM case study in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to stimulate debate around the potential for conflict in the pursuit of resource extraction from the deep sea and the social and environmental harm that these extractions can cause. We do so by first presenting a timeline of local and extra-local events and enabling conditions that form the development background for the DSM Solwara 1 project in PNG. We then undertake a media narrative analysis to consider the contribution of aspects of social acceptability to this highly complex and multi-scale conflict. We find that the lack of (or a decrease in) social acceptability contributed to the conflict situation and ultimately the demise of the Solwara 1 project. Extra-locally, the initial development was positively framed around solutions for decarbonisation using new technology. Over time, actions by international NGOs, financial issues related to foreign companies, and asymmetry in the power balance between the Pacific Island nation and global businesses played a role in growing negative perceptions of acceptability. Historical experiences with prior environmental mining disasters, together with sea tenure governance challenges, and a lack of community and stakeholder acceptance also contributed to the demise of the project. Untangling and debating these complex interactions provides context and reasons for the tension between the lack of societal acceptance at a local scale and the perceived need for DSM products in the global North for innovative technologies and decarbonising societies. Better understanding these interactions and tensions can help emerging industries navigate a future blue economy.
... Although time-consuming and requiring expert capacity, the incorporation of a community-based narrative into socio-ecological frameworks is an opportunity to identify traditional knowledge linked to the deep sea that is particularly strong yet largely undocumented (Levin et al., 2021). This is demonstrated by the interest of deep-sea mining off Pacific Islands, where indigenous peoples and local communities' insights has been brought to the knowledge of a wider public (Tilot et al., 2021;Childs, 2022). Recently, an interdict to stop seismic activity off the South African coast was successful, partly due to local communities' cultural and ancestral connection the deep sea (Lombard, A., pers. ...
Despite its remoteness, human activity has impacted the deep sea and changes to the structure and function of deep-sea ecosystems are already noticeable. In terrestrial and shallow water marine environments, demonstrating how ecosystems support human well-being has been instrumental in setting policy and management objectives for sustainable resource use. Foundational to this approach is a framework of ecosystem service (ES) classification and a synthesis of the knowledge base, which can then be used to structure decision-support tools such as ecosystem accounts or Environmental Impact Assessments. At present, no such framework exists for the deep sea. There is thus an urgent need to determine and assess the ES provided by deep-sea habitats and species before (potentially irreversible) decisions are made about deep-sea habitat use and governance. As a first step towards the incorporation of ES in such decision-making, we undertake two systematic reviews of the scientific literature based on the principles of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) systematic process. This was to define a comparative ES framework and synthesise the current evidence base for how deep-sea habitats support ecosystem services. Our framework proposes four supporting services, three regulating services, four provisioning services and three cultural services for which there is an established and growing body of evidence for the role of deep-sea habitats. The ES framework presented here provides a structure for deep-sea ecosystem services. In its next phase of development, this could provide the foundation for the development of habitat-ecosystem service matrices, which are a critical component for truly accounting for ES in decision-making, particularly spatial management. This framework has significant implications for deep-sea management, conservation and policy, as it provides an ecosystem services-based tool that can be used in any deep-sea ecosystems management across the planet, and it also shows how critical these data gaps are for today’s decisions and how seriously they should be considered in decision-making processes.