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Seabed Mining: The Basics OPINION: Aotearoa’s marine environment is a taonga (treasure) of natural, cultural, recreational and economic importance. It underpins our marine economy, including fisheries, aquaculture and marine tourism. Our seas are 15 times New Zealand’s land area. While about 10 per cent of our land mass is protected as public conservation land, less than 0.4 per cent of our Exclusive Economic Zone is protected in no-take marine reserves. Getty Images The full extent of seabed mining s environmental impacts is uncertain, writes Eugenie Sage. Alan Eggers, from Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR), claimed in a recent opinion piece that the company has the marine and discharge consents it needs to start mining the seabed in the South Taranaki Bight. This is incorrect. ....
However, opponents to seabed mining, when confronted with expert evidence and research-based facts in the courts, turn to being activists in order to spread misinformation and unqualified statements to support their cause through disruption and community-fed misinformation. The court process to obtain mining permits has been a long and at times very arduous road; however. the end is nigh. It is expected that the Supreme Court will deliver its judgment in the coming months, a judgment that will be determined on the facts presented and in accordance with the laws of the land. I am Taranaki born and bred and I love my province. ....
TTR wants to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed a year, every year for 35 years. That doesn’t sound like “minimal” impact to us. Seabed mining involves dragging huge machines across the seafloor, sucking up sediment onto a ship where large magnets separate out the ten percent of minerals, then dumping the remaining 90 percent back into the ocean. Some of that sediment goes back to the seafloor, but models show a lot drifts much further, smothering sea life, distant reefs and coral. This proposed seabed mine would be the first of its kind anywhere in the world. They simply don’t know the extent of the effect it would have on the ocean, whatever Mr Eggers may say. ....
James Ireland/Western Leader Cindy Baxter, left, is the chairwoman for Kiwis Against Seabed Mining. Seabed mining involves dragging huge machines across the seafloor, sucking up sediment onto a ship where large magnets separate out the ten percent of minerals, then dumping the remaining 90 percent back into the ocean. Some of that sediment goes back to the seafloor, but models show a lot drifts much further, smothering sea life, distant reefs and coral. This proposed seabed mine would be the first of its kind anywhere in the world. They simply don’t know the extent of the effect it would have on the ocean, whatever Mr Eggers may say. ....