What is Deep Sea Mining? Episode 5: The Pacific Precedent
Channel: Inhabitants
Date: 2022-06-27

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The first deep sea mining tests took place in the Pacific in 2015, in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea. This has brought strong contestation by local communities, whose lands have been expropriated and whose economy depends on fishing. Resistance by local and indigenous groups has been exemplary in territorial waters of Pacific island nations states, where numerous initiatives - among them PANG and Solwara Warriors - have emerged to inform the population and protect its common resources. While mining itself never began commercially, the mining company’s recent bankruptcy has reportedly left the Papua New Guinea government with a $120 million debt. Now that Pacific nations have seen the exploitative outcome of the corporate Global North’s deep sea mining intentions in Papua New Guinea’s territorial waters, PANG and others are advocating for a deep sea mining ban.

The closing episode of the webseries What is Deep Sea Mining? is narrated by Maureen Penjueli from the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), a regional watchdog, established in 2009, that promoted Pacific peoples’ rights to be self-determining, advocating for free, prior, and informed consent for Indigenous peoples of the Bismarck Sea in accordance with international law.  Addressing issues of scale, political representation, and resource politics, Penjueli reiterates the importance of the oceans' role in securing the carbon equation and contributing to planetary resilience. As such, she calls for the possibility of making politics from an oceanic point of view, that learns from the Pacific Nation’s perspective.

What is Deep Sea Mining? is developed in collaboration with Margarida Mendes, curator and activist from Lisbon, Portugal, and founding member of Oceano Livre environmental movement against deep sea mining. What is Deep Sea Mining? is a web series commissioned by TBA21–Academy. 

Acknowledgements: Maureen Penjueli, and everyone who helped this web series and this episode in particular. Special thanks to: Markus Reymann, 
Stefanie Hessler, and Filipa Ramos.