Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, many millions of years ago, a shark tooth dislodged from its host and descended 4,000 metres from the sunlight zone to the abyss. As the millennia passed, this tooth became covered in metals and debris, eventually becoming one of thousands of rocks scattered along the abyssal plains of the Clarion Clipperton Zone. 

For eons, these rocks—each of them formed over millions of years around a kernel of tooth, shell, or basalt—remained known only to octopus, sea toads, gummy squirrels, and the other deep sea species who live on or among them. Until March 7, 1873, when the crew of the HMS Challenger dredged the seafloor and hauled the odd-looking formations made of almost pure manganese oxide onto deck, wondering if one day they would become important. 

More than a century later, these rocks (known today as polymetallic nodules) are at the centre of a debate on deep sea mining, an emerging industry threatening the health of some of the world’s most vulnerable and least understood ecosystems. The path we choose could have both significant immediate effects, as well as impacts that would reverberate beyond human time scales.

In 1982, the idea of the Common Heritage of Humankind became enshrined in international law by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This meant that the mineral resources of the international seabed—the parts of the seafloor in areas beyond national jurisdiction—were understood as a shared space belonging to all nations. When the Convention entered into force in 1994, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) was formed, tasked with governing the international seabed and its mineral resources for the benefit of humankind as a whole. The ISA was given a dual mandate: to effectively protect the marine environment and to manage mineral resources.

Over the past five years, the Authority’s efforts to balance those duties have been stretched to the limit. In 2021, The Republic of Nauru triggered the “two year rule,” a provision that sets a countdown for the ISA to complete exploitation regulations within two years. As pressure to complete the exploitation regulations mounted, so too did the opposition to deep seabed mining. In 2022, Palau became the first country to call for deep seabed mining to be prevented. Since then, the ISA has faced reports of industry collusion, corporate pressure through increasingly extreme measures, and now a lawsuit filed by the industry at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. 

Deep-sea mining faces growing scrutiny as countries—driven in part by a growing chorus of scientists, Indigenous peoples, and concerned citizens from around the world—question the economic benefits of the industry against the very real harm it would cause, as well as the wisdom behind mining an ecosystem we know so little about, and one that is likely more connected to us than we think. 

Despite corporate and legal pressure from a small number of companies and countries who support the nascent deep seabed mining industry, there are now 46 countries calling for a pause, moratorium, or ban on deep seabed mining. This is in addition to a list of 64 companies—Google, BMW, and Samsung included—who have pledged not to source metals from the deep sea for their batteries. This coalition of states and stakeholders from around the world are striving towards a different future for the ocean, but they are facing a herculean challenge.