The newly elected head of the body that regulates deep sea mining has pledged to reform the organisation, which has faced major criticism in recent weeks.
Leticia Carvalho was elected as the next secretary-general of the International Seabed Authority at a meeting earlier this month.
Before the meeting, media reports detailed a sometimes-vicious fight for the role between Carvalho and the incumbent, Michael Lodge.
Having won that battle, Carvalho said: “For me it became quite clear that the primary issue is the governance of the ISA itself. There is a need for me, quite clearly, to rebuild trust. I don’t want to criticise anyone or any individual specifically, but I think the reality of the facts is that there is a lot of transparency and accountability to be put in place.
She takes charge next year and will also have to contend with major campaigns by NGOs and some governments for deep sea mining to be halted. (Read our recently updated explainer for all the background on this.)
Those calls have only grown stronger after researchers reported a finding that has genuinely astonished many marine watchers: large amounts of oxygen are being produced in the deep sea, possibly by the very polymetallic nodules miners hope to harvest.
For more on this issue, see Dialogue Earth’s recent explainer on deep sea mining.