Brown-black discharge gushed out of a pipe from a hulking ship, dispersing murky clouds of sediment into the international waters of the Pacific Ocean.
The scene, captured in a video that’s garnered international attention, turned a spotlight to a controversial Canadian company that is poised to become the first in the world to extract critical metals from the ocean floor — with the help of a tiny island in Micronesia.
While The Metals Company (TMC) insists the incident during a mining trial was harmless, the spill has renewed calls for a global ban on deep-sea mining. Protesters in Vancouver recently waved placards that singled out TMC for its operations, and asked that delegates to a global ocean conference push for a ban.
The uproar has highlighted the tension between our world’s growing demand for metals that power renewable energy technologies and the impact on the earth of pursuing them. This month, Canada issued a surprise domestic moratorium on deep-sea mining and said international mining should only take place if regulators can ensure environmental protections.
For the rest of this article: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/02/20/why-has-a-canadian-company-partnered-with-the-tiny-island-of-nauru-to-fast-track-deep-sea-mining.html