The governments of the Cook Islands and Hawai’i recently reached a historic sister-city agreement between Honolulu and Avarua, Rarotonga. However, it would appear that the sisters do not see eye to eye when it comes to deep seabed mining.

Hawai’i’s bold step last week to ban seabed mining activities within its State waters was a meaningful move to safeguard its marine ecosystem.

The decision was based on the unknown impacts mining can have on the broader ocean. It recognises the uncertainties that exist due to insufficient scientific research on deep sea ecosystems.

Meanwhile in the Cook Islands, the Seabed Minerals Authority has recently released revised Draft Mining Regulations for public comment.

A total of four weeks has been given for the public to comment on 80 plus pages of the primary document about how deep sea mining activities will be regulated in our waters.

Te Ipukarea Society are concerned that this time frame is too short, and have requested an additional four weeks for comment. Our request is currently under consideration.

The Mining Regulations have been developed to control deep seabed mining activities despite the fact that the Cook Islands Government continues to publicly say that the decision on whether or not to allow mining has not been made.

For us, the release of these draft regulations strongly suggests that the decision has been made! An increasing amount of investment in land-based infrastructure by at least one mining company suggest that they also are confident the green light to mining will be given.

The Cook Islands is in its third year of a five-year exploration phase. An exploration phase where minerals and environmental research is to be conducted. We have been advised that most of the environmental data collected to date is available on the Sea Bed Minerals Authority website, so we will start to take a look at this in the near future. 

Te Ipukarea Society remains concerned about the potential impacts of deep seabed mining. We question the reasoning that Government uses to justify this potentially very destructive industry in our waters.

Government’s motives to mine can basically be reduced to only one, money. A scary thought, as one can become completely blinded by money. As the Bible tells us, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wondered away from the faith… (1 Timothy 6:10).

A significant number of Cook Islanders are supporting deep sea mining because of the money drawcard. We need to ask how much of this mining money will the Cook Islands people actually see?

A deep sea mining operation will be very, very expensive to initiate and maintain. There will be establishment costs which companies will need to recover, probably over a number of years, before making a profit. If there is no profit, there can be no tax. There are plenty of well-off companies in business that on paper show they are not making any profit. The owners of those companies however usually appear to be very well off.

As the Government moves closer to their goal of mining our seabed, we urge all Cook Islanders to look carefully at what we already have in the way of natural resources, or ipukarea, that we all rely on for our health and livelihoods.

Do we really need to take the risks associated with the deep seabed mining industry in our waters?