Cook Islands Civil Society Calls For Ocean Protection From Deep Sea Mining During Underwater Minerals Meeting

Rarotonga, Cook Islands - 150 people paddled out into the port of Avarua, Rarotonga, on Wednesday, deploying a floating banner that calls for ocean protection while an international seabed minerals conference is taking place across town. Another 300 people joined the action on Avarua Harbour.

Civil society groups Te Ipukarea Society, Kōrero O Te Ōrau and Our Ocean Ancestors convened the peaceful flotilla to demonstrate community opposition to deep sea mining - a sentiment echoed by communities across the Pacific.

Alanna Smith, Director of Te Ipukarea Society, says the sail-out event is an opportunity to highlight to the world that there is local opposition to deep sea mining in the Cook Islands.

"Te Ipukarea Society supports a precautionary pause to deep sea mining to ensure robust and independent environmental research is being carried out in our ocean, as well as more time being spent towards meaningful information sharing with our people regarding the environmental risks and impacts of deep sea mining.

"We are still very much in a period of discovering new learnings about how the deep sea functions, for example, very new research highlighting polymetallic nodules being a source of producing dark oxygen in the deep ocean and potential risks to migratory tuna fish stock through pollutants found in excess sediment brought up from the seafloor."

The Underwater Minerals Conference is the largest annual convention of mining companies, governments and academics from around the world. It’s sponsored by Moana Minerals and other deep sea mining-linked companies.

During conference events, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown reiterated the government’s plan to be at the forefront of seabed mining.

Greenpeace campaigner Juressa Lee (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Rarotonga) is in Avarua in solidarity with the groups, and calls for the community to be heard.

"While this minerals conference is underway, the local community is out here calling for ocean protection, not pillage. Indigenous People of the Cook Islands and the Pacific have thousands of years of Indigenous knowledge, cultural ties to and guardianship of the moana. Today they are calling for the health and protection of the ocean to be the priority.

"Efforts to start destructive deep sea mining are being led by the same colonial, extractive mindsets that have caused a huge amount of damage and harm to the climate, environment, biodiversity and Indigenous rights, and Pacific Peoples are on the frontline. Communities here in Rarotonga, in Aotearoa and across the Pacific are standing up to protect the ocean for many generations to come, and Greenpeace stands with them in solidarity.

"These mining companies, governments and greedy investors are promising riches from these deep-sea ‘treasures’, but this cannot be at the expense of a healthy and thriving ocean, on which we all depend."

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