A new research report will be launched at the Deep Ocean Symposium taking place at USP on Thursday next week.

Cook Islands News obtained an early copy of the report, which was completed by The Deep Sea Mining Campaign. In 18 pages, the work critically examines specific ways in which deep-sea mining companies are proposing to monitor their operations.

The overarching premise of The Deep Sea Mining Campaign’s report is that digital twin technology and adaptive management, both promoted by mining companies as means of observing environmental impacts and ensuring transparency in underwater operations, are “fraught with risks”. 

The report, which will be disseminated worldwide after Thursday’s symposium, argues that technologies and systems are not yet advanced enough to do what industry spokespeople claim they will do. The analysis argues that digital twin artificial intelligence has a long way to go before it can accurately paint a picture of mining operations occurring in the deep ocean, which is the most unstudied habitat in the world.

“At this early stage, digital twin technology and adaptive management would act as a smokescreen, allowing companies with financial interests to self-monitor and self-regulate,” says Dr. Helen Rosenbaum, research coordinator at The Deep Sea Mining Campaign. “This is a very dangerous move. Would you trust the fox to guard the henhouse?”

Dr. Rosenbaum, who arrived in Rarotonga this week to speak at next week’s symposium, will launch the report during her talk. Rosenbaum, who has worked on marine toxicology issues and the development of ocean policy in Australia, has been closely observing the assembly of a deep-sea mining industry for more than a decade. 

The aim of digital twin technology is to create a computer-generated representation of a mining operation. The AI uses data collected in a range of ways, primarily via sensors, to create a digital model, or a twin, that shows what’s happening underwater. 

The oil and gas industries have used digital twins since 2017 to monitor and guide equipment during drilling operations in inaccessible environments. Spokespeople for the deep-sea mining industry have promoted this technology as “eyes and ears” for governments and regulators.

“When we first heard about digital twins we thought we would see a full picture of operations in real-time, like a camera showing us what’s going on down there in the deep sea, but it’s not that,” Rosenbaum says in an interview. “It would be a digital representation based on a limited range of measurements. At this stage, the companies would decide what they will measure and also what they will share publicly. So we can expect to see a patchy and biased representation of what’s really going on down there.”

The Deep Sea Campaign’s report also pokes holes in the claim that adaptive management will help to manage the environmental impacts of deep-sea mining. Adaptive management is an approach to project management that’s best described as “learning by doing”, in which a project adapts and evolves in response to data collected along the way. Developed specifically for the field of conservation, the approach is “inappropriate” for managing activities with long-term impacts, the report argues.

“These systems will provide companies with the facade of looking like they’re managing the environmental impacts when in fact they’re just extracting the resource as quickly as they can,” Rosenbaum says. 

Rosenbaum joins a panel of other speakers at next week’s symposium, including Professor Andrew Sweetman, whose work recently revealed that deep-sea nodules produce oxygen, creating a worldwide stir among both proponents and opponents of deep-sea mining.

The Deep Ocean Symposium follows last month’s Underwater Minerals Conference, which took place in the National Auditorium and highlighted a range of pro-mining perspectives. Its goal, per organisers Te Puna Vai Marama and Te Ipukarea Society, is to provide alternative perspectives.

The symposium is free to all Cook Islanders. Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/deep-ocean-symposium-is-mining-the-seabed-undermining-our-future-tickets-996571059867?aff=oddtdtcreator. –TPVM