<aside> 👋 Hello and welcome to the #LookDown #DefendTheDeep campaign toolkit!
Here you will find all the information, key figures, scientific reports, communication elements you need to talk about deep seabed mining and participate in a #LookDown campaign to ask your representatives to stop this destructive industry.
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🐋 The deep ocean is home to a diversity of species that live in particularly fragile and unique ecosystems. Many of these species are found nowhere else on our planet. At present, the ecosystems and biodiversity of the deep sea remain largely unexplored and still very little understood: we know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about the bottom of our ocean.
🌎 But the ocean is also our biggest ally against the climate crisis: it is our biggest carbon sinks, absorbing more than 30% of our global greenhouse gases emissions. 93% of the excess heat generated by human activities via the greenhouse effect is absorbed by the ocean, thus mitigating the increase in temperature of the atmosphere.
💎 In recent years, a particular interest in deep-sea mining has grown worldwide. With the current rate of depletion of mineral resources on land, mining companies are now looking to access these highly sought after metals such as cobalt, copper, manganese, nickel and more, from the bottom of the ocean.
🏭 The potential impacts of deep-sea mining are numerous and multi-scale: from the loss of species and habitats to the chemical modification of ocean systems, the potential release of carbon sequestered in oceanic soils, and the disturbance of abyssal ecosystems due to sediment plumes and noise pollution.
👩🔬 Scientists are concerned that deep-sea ecosystems will never recover from the impacts of mining. The scientific consensus is that a moratorium on deep-sea mining is essential, given the lack of research and data on the deep ocean (both on its ecosystems and the impacts of mining on them) and the lack of transparency of the ISA.
Deep-Sea Mining Science Statement