Getting the science right: But what is the right science? (Underwater Mining Conference UMC Conference 2024)

Summary

Deep-sea minerals exploration and the prospects of future mining are strongly connected to environmental and social licence. Consideration of nodule exploration and harvesting within Cook Islands presents a unique opportunity to springboard from developments in The Area, most notably the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCFZ). In The Area, endeavours to “getting the science right” are applied at the level of humankind and have been focused on the values of comprehensiveness and trustworthiness of environmental baseline studies. Both of these values are un-bounded and open to interpretation, particularly if all uncertainty or unknowns in the research space are treated equally and are equated to an inability to move forward. The focus on the values of comprehensiveness and trustworthiness in baseline studies is driven principally by contrasting desires to (a) reduce uncertainty in EIA, (b) obtain social and political licence, (c) obtain research funding or support existing research avenues, (d) campaign for delay or prohibition of deep-sea mining. We identify three negative consequences of this focus that could potentially emerge: (1) un-bounded values enabling groups to perpetually undermine the validity of projects on environmental grounds, (2) contractors disincentivised to share environmental data due to the overt competitive value placed on it, amplified by the risk and cost profile, (3) value being placed on a completeness test and not outcomes. We argue that to avoid these risks, endeavours of getting the science right should have an emphasis on getting the right science, decoupled from the aspirations of global ocean research and targeted to informing environmental risk, predictions of impact, project development mitigations, monitoring and appropriate levels of precaution. We further argue that this emphasis can ultimately lead to more capacity for contractors to focus on good environmental and social outcomes, and project development optionality that maintains adaptive management capacity.