A new film has revealed the scale and nature of the impacts that deep-sea mining would have on life in the Pacific Island region, from direct damage to seafloor ecosystems, to tailings waste and sediment plumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the interests of transparency, I was involved in writing part of the film\u2019s script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blue Peril was made in response to the rush by governments and companies to begin mining the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ), an area of the Pacific spanning 4.5 million square kilometres between Hawaii and Mexico \u2013 equivalent to the size of the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The documentary makers say it provides the first independent visual investigation of the tailings waste and sediment plumes that mining operations would create, and of how they will affect marine life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The modelling uses data from scientific literature and international oceanographic models<\/a> to predict how far tailings and pollution would spread. It presents the findings in tandem with a view from the Pacific islander communities that stand to be most affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n