Latest news with #seabedmining
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Decision looms on seabed mining
Aotearoa will soon have a big decision to make - and on an issue where emotions run high. Governments around the world are weighing up whether to allow mining of the ocean floor for metal ores and minerals, and that includes New Zealand. Senior Lecturer in Law at Auckland University of Technology Myra Williamson believes seabed mining could become one of the defining environmental battles of 2025. She joins Jesse to discuss the issue. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
6 days ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
Tribunal asked to halt seabed mine fast-track
Rachel Arnott with kaumatua Ngāpari Nui at the New Plymouth District Council committee. Photo: Te Korimako o Taranaki South Taranaki hapū want the Waitangi Tribunal to halt a fast-track bid to mine the seabed off Pātea. Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) has applied under the new Fast-track Approvals Act to mine in the South Taranaki Bight for 20 years. The mining and processing ship would churn through 50 million tonnes of the seabed annually, discharging most of it back into the ocean in shallow water just outside the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit. Hapū and iwi are seeking a tribunal injunction to block processing of TTR's fast-track application. The claimants want an urgent hearing into alleged Crown breaches and are seeking to summon Crown officials they say are responsible. They say the Crown failed to consult tangata whenua, breaching Te Tiriti o Waitangi and ignored a Supreme Court ruling against the seabed mine. To get an urgent Waitangi Tribunal hearing, applicants must be suffering or likely to suffer significant and irreversible prejudice, as a result of current or pending Crown actions. Lead claimant Puawai Hudson of Ngāruahine hapū Ngāti Tū said their moana was rich in taonga species. "If seabed mining goes ahead, we lose more than biodiversity - we lose the mauri that binds us as Taranaki Mā Tongatonga [people of south Taranaki]," Hudson said. The area was also subject to applications under the Marine and Coastal Area Act - the law that replaced the Foreshore and Seabed Act. "This is not consultation - this is colonisation through fast-track." The applicants' legal team, who're also of Ngāruahine, say the Wai 3475 claim breaks new ground. Legal tautoko Alison Anitawaru Cole and Te Wehi Wright said the Court of Appeal proved the tribunal's powers to require Crown action in urgent and prejudicial cases, when it summonsed Children's Minister Karen Chhour. They argue the tribunal should be able to halt other urgent and prejudicial Crown actions - such as processing TTR's application under the Fast-track Approval Act (FAA). The Taranaki claimants are: Groups outside Taranaki facing FAA applications have also joined, including Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Porou ki Hauraki. As opponents press their claim, TTR is due to argue its case this week at New Plymouth District Council (NPDC). Trans-Taman said opposition to seabed mining lacked scientific credibility and the waste sediment it discharges would be insignificant, given the load already carried by the turbid Tasman Sea. TTR managing director Alan Eggers is expected to lay out his wares to councillors at a public workshop on Wednesday morning. The company promises an economic boost in Taranaki and Whanganui, creating more than 1350 New Zealand jobs and becoming one of the country's top exporters. The only known local shareholder - millionaire Phillip Brown - last week was reported to lodge a complaint to NPDC, alleging bias by its iwi committee, Te Huinga Taumatua. The Taranaki Daily News reported Brown thought tribal representatives and councillors on the committee talked for too long during a deputation opposed to TTR's mining bid. After the hour-and-a-quarter discussion, Te Huinga Taumatua co-chair Gordon Brown noted it was a record extension of the officially allotted 15 minutes. The committee, including Mayor Neil Holdom, voted that the full council should consider declaring opposition to TTR's mine, when it meets on 24 June. Brown reportedly believed the meeting was procedurally flawed and predetermined. Iwi liaison committees in north and south Taranaki typically relax debate rules to allow fuller kōrero. Taranaki Regional Council's powerful policy and planning committee recently reached a rare accord on dealing with freshwater pollution, when its new chair - Māori constituency councillor Bonita Bigham - suspended standing orders in favour of flowing discussion. Ngāti Ruanui has stood against Trans-Tasman for more than a decade, including defeating their application in the Supreme Court. Rūnanga kaiwhakahaere Rachel Arnott said the Crown should know mana whenua would never give up. "We are still here, because our ancestors never gave up fighting for what is right. "Tangaroa is not yours to sell - we will never leave, we will be here way beyond TTR, they have no future here." LDR is local body reporting co-funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
RNZ News
09-06-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Seabed mine fears ignite coast towns on Ocean Day
A group on the Taranaki cape completed representation for the region's three waka: Aotea at Pātea, Tokomaru at Ngāmotu and Kurahaupō at Pungarehu. Photo: Supplied / Climate Justice Taranaki A match lit six weeks ago in the coastal Taranaki town of Ōpunakē has ignited fires the length of the North Island - and far across the Pacific - with seabed mining opponents taking to the coast on World Ocean Day. South Taranaki's 15-year fight against an Australian mining bid was picked up by more than 200 surfers, stand-up paddleboarders, body boarders, waka ama crew and kayakers at eight spots along the coast between Wellington to Auckland on Sunday. As they paddled-out from Island Bay, Whanganui, Pātea, Pungarehu, New Plymouth, Raglan, Port Waikato and Muriwai hundreds more rallied on shore, with organisers saying strong turnouts in New Plymouth and Raglan took total numbers over 1200. Four-thousand kilometres away supporters in Tāhiti also hit the waves, they said. Fiona Young of Protect Our Moana Taranaki said coastal communities jumped on board after the first paddle-out at Ōpunakē in April. "It's important being connected together for this, because if given the greenlight here it would set a very dangerous precedent for all the rest of our coast and the Pacific." "It's a new experimental extractive industry that doesn't belong in our oceans." Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) has approval to vacuum up 50 million tonnes of sand annually from the South Taranaki seabed for 35 years to extract iron, vanadium and titanium. But the company still needs consent to discharge 45 million tonnes of unwanted sediment a year back into the shallow waters - 160,000 tonnes daily of a recognised pollutant. After a decade failing to win discharge consent right through to the Supreme Court, Trans-Tasman last year quit the latest environment hearing to seek consent via the new Fast-track Approvals Act. Many locals fear sediment would smother reefs and stunt marine photosynthesis by filtering sunlight. TTR's executive chairman Alan Eggers said the discharge wouldn't bother the marine ecology. "De-ored sands will be returned immediately to the seafloor in a controlled process to minimise the generation of suspended sediment ... the plume generated is localised," said Eggers, who's also executive director of TTR's new owners, Australia miner Manuka Resources. Surfboards and water craft spelled-out 'no seabed mining' on the black sand of Autere. Photo: Photo / Tania Niwa The mining ship would work as close as 22 kilometres off Pātea. Saturday's cold snap cloaked Taranaki Maunga with winter's first heavy snowfall but, after dawn karakia, 20 surfers shrugged off the chill at Pātea Beach and formed Sunday's first circle on the water. Among them was Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. As a Ngāti Ruanui leader she fought the miners for a decade before entering Parliament. Ngarewa-Packer said World Ocean Day helped highlight that the proposed mine was an untested precedent, here and internationally. "Seabed mining leaves behind the sludge, or the mud. Imagine 45 million tons of sludge ... a lot of our magic reef life and our marine life will be absolutely annihilated." Sand extraction is common but doesn't involve dumping most of what's taken back into the environment, opponents say. Among the 100 supporters on Pātea's beach and dunes was onshore oil driller Hayden Fowler. Despite working in an extractive industry, Fowler brought his teenage daughter Amelia to Pātea to oppose the marine mine. "I just don't think it's the right thing to be doing." "A lot of people don't actually understand what will take place if it happens ... so it's probably a little bit misunderstood as to how bad it could be." Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui kaiwhakahaere Rachel Arnott said TTR kept losing in court because judges found environmental safety evidence unconvincing "TTR had nothing and in the Fast-track application we still haven't seen any sign that they've adapted to the courts' demands for proof - nothing fresh in terms of evidence." Surfers, kayakers and waka ama paddlers were amongst the 130 who formed a circle off Autere East End Beach in Ngāmotu - one of nine community actions against seabed mining on Sunday. Photo: Photo / Tania Niwa On Sunday afternoon 500 gathered at New Plymouth's Autere, or East End Beach, to cheer more than 130 taking to the waves. Surfer Fiona Gordon said she was there to celebrate the ocean. "The beautiful things that it brings to our lives and the risks that are posed when we start interfering with that, in ways we don't fully understand." Many travelled from Pātea to join the Ngāmotu event including Bruce Boyd, head of community underwater science researchers Project Reef. "I dive off Pātea, that's my playground, and I don't want to see what's there changed in any way, shape, or form. Especially not covered by that sludge." TTR expects to earn US$312 million a year before tax, giving shareholders a near 40 percent rate of return on investment of US$602 million. The company promises an economic boost in Taranaki and Whanganui, creating over 1350 New Zealand jobs and becoming one of the country's top exporters. Opponents believe the financial benefits will land with mostly-foreign shareholders. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
New York Times
07-05-2025
- Science
- New York Times
Want to Be a Deep Sea Explorer? Don't Worry, There's Lots Left.
Humans have visually documented about 1,470 square miles, or a mere 0.001 percent, of the deep seafloor, according to a new study. That's a little larger than the size of Rhode Island. The report, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, arrives as nations debate whether to pursue industrial mining of the seabed for critical minerals. Some scientists argue that so little is known about the undersea world that more research on the deep seafloor is needed to responsibly move forward with extractive activities. 'More information is always beneficial, so we can make more informed and better decisions,' said Katy Croff Bell, a marine biologist who led the study and is the founder of the Ocean Discovery League, a nonprofit group that promotes seafloor exploration.
