The Cook Islands government plans to license seabed mining operators to prospect its exclusive economic zone for manganese and cobalt nodules within the coming financial year, Deputy Prime Minister Mark Brown told the Cook Islands News.
Brown’s comments, reported in a May 23 article, came in response to a new report commissioned by environmental advocacy groups The Ocean Foundation and MiningWatch Canada. The report warns of serious environmental impacts if mining takes place in the Pacific Ocean’s seabed, and says that even working out what those impacts might be will take a lot longer than the government’s projected timescale of commencing mining in less than five years.
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/cook-islands-to-grant-seabed-mining-exploration-licenses-within-a-year/
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