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The International Seabed Authority is preparing to release an 18-year data set showing the environmental impact of deep seabed mining, allowing researchers to assess the effect of mining operations on the deep seabed ecosystem.
[ More ]Plans are advancing to harvest precious ores from the ocean floor, but scientists say that companies have not tested them enough to avoid devastating damage.
[ More ]Mining interests are racing to extract minerals from the ocean bottom that would be used in batteries for electric vehicles but advocates warn that in addition to its effect on the deep seabed ecosystem, mining could have the counterproductive effect of increasing global warming by releasing carbon stored in deep sea sediments.
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The authors review the threat from China's aggressive claims in the South China Sea to the global maritime order and recommend a number of ways (short of ratifying UNCLOS) that the U.S. can "safeguard U.S. interests and raise the costs of further destabilizing Chinese behavior."
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The author makes a strong case for ratifying UNCLOS, arguing that by failing to do so, "the United States loses out on national security, oceanic trade, resource extraction, and its own values as defender of the rule of law."
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Delegations from nine countries and the European Union will gather in Greenland this week to sign an accord to help protect Arctic marine ecosystems that have only recently become accessible because of the melting ice cap. The Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean marks the first time that nations have worked together so proactively to protect an ocean environment before the start of commercial fishing.
[ More ]Once thought too expensive and too difficult, commercial scale mining of the deep sea is poised to become a reality as early as 2019. But scientists warn reaching rare minerals on and under the sea floor could cause irreversible damage to an environment that is still poorly understood.
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