Interesting article by Amanda Van Dyke. Highly recommended.
There are 67 NGOs with observer status at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) as of March 2026, which explains why nothing gets done. More than thirty years after its creation, there is still no final Mining Code for nodule exploitation.
“Deep‑sea mining disturbs low‑productivity abyssal ecosystems and may have long‑lasting local effects on small communities of widely distibuted organisms reliant upon the nodules themselves, but avoids the deforestation, human displacement and occupational hazards of many terrestrial mines. The ethical question is whether it is better to concentrate impacts on a relatively small portion of the most common habitat on Earth, or to continue expanding high‑impact mining frontiers on land like tropical rainforests.“
“The job of a regulator is not to deliver closure for activists. It is to regulate access to resources designated as the “common heritage of mankind” in a way that balances environmental protection, equitable benefit sharing and global development needs. That will always involve trade‑offs.“
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 