Threat to marine resource from marine phosphate mining

Excerpt from an article entitled “Fishers against mining proposal” by Bill Moore published in the Nelson Mail of New Zealand on 6 July 2013.

Namibia is not alone in facing a threat to its marine resource from marine phosphate mining.

New Zealand is experiencing the same and resistance from its fishing industry is equally fierce.

What makes an article in New Zealand’s Nelson Mail of 6 July 2013 of particular significance is not only the resistance being demonstrated against this type of marine mining, BUT that the company involved, namely Chatman Rock Phosphates, is also one of four companies wanting to mine phosphates in Namibia’s coastal waters. (The other three being Gecko (north of Swakopmund) , Namibia Marine Phosphate (Sandpiper in Walvis Bay) and LL NP (in Luderitz).

The project of Chatham Rock Phosphates (CRP) in Namibia is in its initial stage. This company has applied for several EPL’s. CRP has established a company, MANMAR INVESTMENTS ONE HUNDER SIX (Pty) Ltd., in Namibia, but its shareholding is not known.

The article concludes with these paragraphs:

“Greenpeace oceans campaigner Karli Thomas said the environmental group would be opposing the permit application.

‘Industrial-scale vacuuming up the seabed isn’t going to happen without some pretty devastating impacts,’ he said.

‘The idea of doing that with untested technology in areas designated for seabed protection is madness. There’s no point protecting the seabed from fishing and then sucking it up and spitting it out for phosphate mining’”.

Text of excerpt:

Begin

A pioneering seabed mining plan by a Golden Bay company “risks ruining New Zealand’s sustainable fisheries and our international reputation”, a fishing industry leader says.
Chatham Rock Phosphate is about to apply to the Environmental Protection Authority for a marine permit.

The listed company, headed by Onekaka couple Linda Sanders and Chris Castle, says phosphate nodules on the seabed in 400 metres of water on the Chatham Rise are worth $6 billion, and has forecast earnings of $62 million to $100m a year for 15 years.

It has teamed up with giant Dutch multinational dredging and marine services company Royal Boskalis in a plan to suck up the phosphate, unload it at South Island ports and sell it unprocessed to the fertiliser industry in New Zealand and overseas.

Chairman and corporate affairs director Ms Sanders says the company, in the process of raising more capital through a share offer, has employed a range of experts to carefully assess the environmental impact and develop a plan to minimise any effects the large-scale suction dredging will have.

But Deepwater Group chief executive George Clement has labelled it “strip mining” and says the fishing industry will fight the plan.

Greenpeace also plans to oppose it and expects other environmental groups to follow suit.

Mr Clement said the proposed mining “puts short-term gains ahead of the ability of New Zealand’s fisheries to thrive and to continue to provide sustainable economic benefits to the country.”

He said the seafood industry had worked with the Government to create Benthic Protection Areas so that the seabed ecology and species such as sponges and corals could be undisturbed. Strip mining for a “low-value mineral” would have a double-whammy impact.

“Not only would the protections put in place for these sensitive marine areas be destroyed, but the underwater pollution caused by removing up to 1.2 metres of sand and mud from the seabed over 820 square kilometres has the potential to damage hoki, ling, hake and orange roughy stocks in the area.

“This is the same as removing all of the topsoil from an area the size of Tongariro National Park and to then simply dump the parts not needed back into the ocean, to be carried wherever the currents and weather conditions dictate.”

Greenpeace oceans campaigner Karli Thomas said the environmental group would be opposing the permit application.

“Industrial-scale vacuuming up the seabed isn’t going to happen without some pretty devastating impacts,” he said.

“The idea of doing that with untested technology in areas designated for seabed protection is madness. There’s no point protecting the seabed from fishing and then sucking it up and spitting it out for phosphate mining”.
Swakopmund Matters 6 July 2013 (For Swakopmund Matters the environment of the Namibian coastline and its ocean matters)