Around a hundred local and overseas speakers, ocean lovers, local authorities and government ministers turned up to yesterday’s Deep Sea symposium which provides Cook Islands with more knowledge of deep sea mining.

Held at the University of South Pacific, the one-day symposium was facilitated as a collaborative effort between E Puna Vai Mārama and Te Ipukarea Society (TIS).

Te Puna Vai Marama is Cook Islands Centre for Research, a joint venture between the Cook Islands Government and the University of the South Pacific.

The conference covered topics revolving around the potential environment and economic impacts of deep sea mining to Cook Islands which will be featured in this newspaper in the weekend.

Professor Heather Worth, Director of  Te Puna Vai Marama said that the conference aimed to give Cook Islands including the government more missing pieces and knowledge around deep sea mining and to give more options on decision-makings while Cook Islands is in its exploration phase.

“I think it was a wonderful success, we had about 100 people attend and it was a really lively discussion with lively questions, great papers too,” she said.

“I'm very, very happy about how it all ended up. It's just lovely to see our overseas guests, as well as our local people, talk about this really important issue.

“We weren't looking for anything in particular. We wanted to just have a really good discussion and a wide range of views on a wide range of topics. I think we really got that.”

TIS director Alana Smith said one of the interesting areas of information presented at the symposium was economic impacts.

“It’s because presenters were able to share new ideas on the topic of deep sea mining, ideas that I guess our people haven't been made aware of or informed of,” she said.

“One of the interesting ones was talking about the financial uncertainties in this industry. We know that the potential financial gains has been a key driving factor to why people would want to see deep sea mining, but there haven't really been many discussions around that, like what does that financial greatness look like?

“What are the uncertainties in that too, which is what Chris Fleming was able to speak more towards today. So that's some of the new interesting information that was able to be shared.”

A range of experts on environmental, economic and community impact of seabed exploration and mining locally and internationally attended the gathering.

They included Hawaiian Elder of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument Advisory Council and Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group, Solomon Pili Kahoʻohalahala, known as Uncle Sol, and the leader of the Seafloor Ecology and Biogeochemistry research group at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, Andrew Sweetman, whose research on the oxygenic properties of deep sea nodules reached global audiences when released earlier this year.

The symposium was held at the University of the South Pacific Cook Islands, and followed by an evening event, a screening of Deep Sea Rising, from 5 to 7pm.

Meanwhile, Cook Islands is currently in its third year of a five-year exploration phase to determine the feasibility of deep-sea mining for polymetallic nodules rich in metals needed in the green energy transition.

Three companies were granted a seabed minerals exploration licence in 2022 to carry out exploration work. As part of the exploration process, these companies must review the associated environmental risks and if they can prove that mining is viable, the government will award them a mining licence.

Last month, the Cook Islands government revealed that it sees greater economic potential in seabed mining, which has fuelled concerns from the Opposition.

Deep-sea mining for polymetallic nodules rich in cobalt, copper, nickel and manganese has the potential to transform the country’s earning to “much, much greater levels”, according to Prime Minister Mark Brown.

In a previous interview with Cook Islands News, Brown said that Cook Islands moved from a country that was agricultural-based exports, earning millions of dollars a year, to now a country that makes its income from tourism, earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Tourism’s contribution to the country’s economy is set to cross half a billion dollars this year, with projected earnings of $520 million for 2024, representing 73 per cent of the GDP.