"What the Wild Sea Can Be" by Helen Scales

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With all that’s available now and in the future, it should be possible for seafood diners to choose from a broad array of species caught and carefully farmed; there will be good-value food available from low-impact, regenerative ocean farms and from fisheries that are properly managed, with well-enforced regulations governing the types of fishing gear used and the times and places where fishing happens, to ensure habitats aren’t damaged and wild populations are not depleted.

How to Use Ocean Resources

In the Pacific Ocean, more than a hundred miles off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, a shipful of research scientists recently found a giant underwater volcano with shimmering warm water seeping out of it. Almost a mile beneath the surface, the seamount’s summit was covered in colourful forests of deep-sea corals and sponges, and among them were nestled giant golden egg cases, each more than a foot long. Flying up from the deeper abyss was a spiny skate, a ghostly-white, diamond-shaped relative of the flapper skates of the Atlantic and likewise more than six feet long. The scientists soon saw this was a female, because she had an egg case emerging from her body—the first time anyone had seen a skate in the process of laying her egg in the deep sea. Thousands more skates joined her on the seamount. Although the total number was impossible to count, the team estimated that one million, perhaps even five million, skate eggs were laid on that seamount. The female skates likely migrate to this spot from great distances across the Pacific basin, knowing this is the place to come for warm waters that are just the right temperature to incubate their eggs and speed their growth; otherwise, it takes three years or longer for them to hatch in cold waters of the deep ocean.

At around the same time, southwards in the Pacific off the coast of Costa Rica, another team of scientists were studying a previously unexplored seamount when they came across a deep-sea octopus nursery, only the fourth ever found. Hundreds of mauve-coloured octopus mothers lay across the flanks of the mountain, more than nine thousand feet underwater, their suckered arms wrapped over their bodies, protecting their egg clutches from predators. The scientists watched as coin-size baby octopuses emerged from their eggs and swam away with pulses of their eight tiny arms.

Meanwhile, across the Pacific on its northwestern rim, a research team has been studying the first seamount to be successfully mined. Rocky crusts on underwater volcanoes are a target for deep-sea mining companies eager to begin exploiting them for the metals they contain, in particular cobalt. In 2020, in the waters of Japan, more than a mile deep, a small part of the Takuyo-Daigo Seamount was drilled and extracted by a fifteen-ton, remotely operated mining machine that looked like a digger on caterpillar tracks, with a twenty-inch-wide cutter head. During less than two hours, the machine mined four hundred feet of the seamount’s surface and removed fourteen hundred pounds of crust.

The test mine was trifling in size compared to the full-scale commercial operations that are planned. And yet, scientists surveying the site before and after the test saw that the ecosystem had been drastically altered. As expected, squashed, dead wildlife, including corals, sponges, and sea cucumbers, lay in the path of the crawling machine. Far more shocking, a year later, the area surrounding the mined site was still substantially depleted of life. Fish and shrimp were around half as abundant as before the test. They’d been scared off and not come back, long after the machine was taken away and the scene had quietened, presumably because the area was still too disturbed and their prey too contaminated. Studies of the small test set off loud alarm bells that mining seamounts would be even more devastating to deep-sea life than had been thought previously.

Amid a constant stream of discoveries of life in the ocean, it’s plain to see that deep-sea mining would be catastrophic for the health and vibrancy of the planet. As researchers explore and study more of the deep, the stakes become ever higher, as they uncover vital habitats on which species depend and see how everything matters—each seamount, each hydrothermal vent, each square foot of abyssal plain.

The year 2023 marked a turning point in plans to begin mining the deep sea. At a series of key meetings at the headquarters of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Jamaica, deep-sea mining companies anticipated receiving a green light to commence their commercial operations. Out in the high seas, the seabed is officially the common heritage of humanity—it is a natural asset shared among everyone alive today and with future generations to come—and the ISA is the organisation charged with deciding on behalf of all humanity whether to permit deep-sea mining, and how, when, and by whom.^c Companies hungry to start turning a profit from deep-sea mining were met at the ISA’s meetings in 2023 with a growing wall of opposition. More than twenty nations are calling for a pause or moratorium on the industry. Canada, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Aotearoa (New Zealand), and Costa Rica are among the countries urging the ISA stop the rush to begin mining;^d Palau, Fiji, Samoa, and the Federated States of Micronesia have formed a moratorium alliance; the European Parliament has called for a moratorium; and the French Parliament voted in favour of a full ban on the industry.^e

Joining the chorus of concern are the voices of indigenous peoples whose lives are closely entwined with the areas nearest the potential first wave of mining sites in the Pacific. Campaigners presented a declaration to the ISA signed by more than one thousand representatives from thirty-four Pacific countries and fifty-six indigenous groups who collectively deny their consent to deep-sea mining. In the words of the declaration:

Cultures across the Pacific consider the ocean to be sacred space for creation, a provider, an ancestor, and a link to places and people across the horizon. We would no more harm the ocean than we would a member of our family. And as with our family, we depend on each other for survival. … We refuse to allow any further harm to our sacred ocean.

Corporate backers and partners, seeing which way the wind is blowing, have been exiting the deep-sea mining industry, including Lockheed Martin and the shipping giant Maersk, which sold all its shares in the Metals Company. International corporations pledging not to use metals from the deep in their supply chains include Google, battery manufacturer Samsung SDI, and car makers Volvo, Volkswagen, and BMW, stating environmental concerns as a major reason for steering clear of the industry.

At the July 2023 meeting in Jamaica, following ardent calls from member states to debate the issue of a moratorium, ISA officials finally agreed that when talks resumed in 2024 they would, for the first time, allow formal discussions about environmental safeguarding and the possibility of a precautionary pause in deep-sea mining. The ISA also resisted pressure from a few vocal countries and companies to permit mining to start right away and kicked the issue two years down the line. A provisional deadline of July 2025 was set for completing the regulations that would oversee deep-sea mining. Known as the mining code, this contentious document has already been a work in progress for many years. Technically, mining can commence only once those regulations are in place. There is still a possibility a company will apply for a full mining licence from the ISA before the code is finalised, exploiting a legal loophole created in 2020 by the Micronesian island nation of Nauru in partnership with the Metals Company, intended to accelerate their mining plans. But any premature applications would not necessarily be approved, and so there is no smooth path open for mining to begin imminently.

Crucially, the mining code would dictate how mining can be managed to avoid harming the ocean environment, which is a key responsibility of the ISA. Hundreds of scientists around the world agree that it will take an absolute minimum of ten years of dedicated, independent, well-funded global research to gather enough data to even begin considering whether it’s possible to responsibly mine the deep sea.

A long list of important topics and questions needs investigating. Even the simplest matter of cataloguing the species that exist in the deep will require immense, coordinated research programmes. There are more difficult questions to investigate to reveal how deep-sea ecosystems work. How do deep-sea corals reproduce? (Nobody has ever seen one spawning.) Why do so many species visit seamounts, and how important are they for the functioning of the entire ocean?

We also need to understand much better the impacts of mining huge areas of seabed—individual mines would excavate hundreds of square miles of the abyss each year and operate nonstop for decades, and dozens of these mines would be operating simultaneously. This is not a simple matter of questioning whether mining will impact the ocean—it’s obvious that it would cause widespread, irreversible damage by removing habitat and killing species. The key challenge is to fully grasp just how bad those impacts would be. How much would deep-sea mining worsen the climate crisis by interfering with stores of carbon in the seabed and altering the ocean’s ability to sequester more carbon from the atmosphere? What will whales and other megafauna do when their migration routes become noisy and polluted? How much pollution will mining stir up, including toxic heavy metals and radioactive particles from polymetallic nodules? Already studies suggest human food webs will be contaminated, as fish such as tuna swim through the areas earmarked for mining, and it would become more of a problem as the ocean warms and more populations are expected to shift into mined zones.

As deep-sea research continues, arguments in favour of deep-sea mining will continue to weaken. The main focus of pro-mining campaigns has been the demand for certain metallic elements to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles. Electrifying global fleets of cars and trucks would no doubt require immense amounts of resources, including a lot of metal. However, it’s highly premature to presume which metals will be in greatest demand in the years ahead.

Building batteries for electric vehicles is one of the world’s fastest-paced industries. New designs are frequently being released as manufacturers compete to make the most affordable, fast-charging, long-lasting batteries. And the metals they use are quickly changing. Until a couple of years ago, industry talk focused on cobalt, a key element in early-generation hybrid and electric cars. This deeply problematic metal is produced in mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in an industry with a disastrous human rights record. Prospective deep-sea miners declared their virtuous intentions of sidestepping that horrendous industry and instead extracting cobalt from the deep. Now, however, electric car batteries are being built that contain little or no cobalt. The metals that could be extracted from the deep sea, including cobalt and lithium, can be swapped out. Chinese manufacturers are releasing the first car batteries made from sodium, a metal that is not in limited supply and won’t be dug up from the deep sea.

In ten years, the world will be a very different place. Vehicle technologies will have progressed beyond anything that exists today. Scientists will have continued making mind-blowing discoveries in the ocean, uncovering species nobody imagined, and learnt so much more about the inner workings of these vast, interconnected living spaces that help make life possible everywhere else on the planet. With the tide turning on the deep-sea mining industry, and ever more people realising just what’s at stake, hope is growing that swaths of the living ocean that could have ended up being sacrificed for the profit of a few will instead be saved for the benefit of everyone.

Living together on this blue planet, we are all ocean people. We all depend on healthy seas for the air we breathe, for the falling rain, for the liveable world we inhabit. For millions of people, a healthy ocean means food and jobs. It is within reach of every one of us to be a force for good in the ocean and join the growing movement to keep ocean life as vibrant and abundant as possible, even while the Anthropocene swiftly changes around us.

A starting place is at home, wherever that is. The choices we all make as consumers are important. Express your buying power at the checkout counter; support ethical, responsible businesses; ask questions about where products have come from, how they were made, and who made them. Get informed and help others in your life do the same.

If you choose to eat seafood, you have a direct line between your body and the ocean, and you can decide to use that link in a positive way. You can seek out the options that tread most lightly on sea life and give your business to the people working hardest to make a sustainable, ethical living from the ocean.

Support businesses that are part of the emerging circular economy and are offering alternative ways of producing and consuming goods, including rental rather than ownership, repair instead of throwing away. See how you can cut back on plastic packaging; there are ever more companies out there trying to help you do that.

Much of this takes effort, money, and time, which you won’t always have—none of us do. So make sure you feel good when you can make better choices, and try not to feel guilty when you can’t.

Recognise that the actions you take do matter, though they can go only so far. None of us can save the ocean by ourselves. But you can reach out wider. Look to your networks and find ways to influence them. Now that environmental activism has gone mainstream, every office, every school, every industry has people who want to make a difference and do better for the planet. Find them, join them, be one of the leaders.

When it comes to the food you eat and the products you buy, you can exert your influence higher up the supply chain. Supermarkets have immense power. They decide where so much of our food comes from, and they do shift their ways when consumers pile on the pressure. Use social media to name and shame companies that are filling the ocean with pointless plastics. Join campaigns that are calling out the worst offenders and demanding change. In Britain and Germany, supermarkets responding to environmental campaigns are putting pressure on the European Union to improve its tuna fisheries in the Indian Ocean. France wouldn’t have banned plastic-wrapped fresh produce if supermarket customers hadn’t been up in arms. These kinds of campaigns can and do work.

It is critical for the ocean, and the whole living planet, that carbon emissions are cut as soon and as deeply as possible. Already, there’s a global campaign underway to starve fossil fuel corporations of capital. Influential organisations and institutions, from churches and pension funds to universities and banks, are phasing out their investments in the industry. Leaders include the French bank Crédit Mutuel, which in 2020 divested all its fossil fuel financing; other banks making major divestments include the German Deutsche Bank and the State Bank of India. After a five-year campaign by students, academics, and politicians, the University of Cambridge pledged in 2020 to divest its £3.5 billion endowment from fossil fuel corporations by the end of the decade, and many other British universities are making similar commitments. Among American universities, Harvard University announced in 2021 it will move to divest its $42 billion endowment from fossil fuels; other divestors include New York, Cornell, Boston, and Brown Universities. You can be part of this by supporting the businesses and groups that are boldly pushing back against fossil fuel dominance. And if you work in a business or organisation with capital to invest, be part of this push and join the movement.

The future of the ocean will be determined at the coasts and far inland, in assembly halls, boardrooms, and voting booths. Next time you step up to vote, do so as if the environment matters. Call on your elected representatives. Their job is to stand up for constituents like you and take your views seriously.

We all live in a world with an ocean full of remarkable, beautiful, and strange living things, creatures we can dream about and maybe see one day. We can all feel the same sorrow when those wonders are allowed to fade away, and we can all take action to push towards a better future. My greatest source of hope comes from knowing that ever more people are embracing this idea and strengthening the connections between us all and the edges of the land and out into the wide, wild ocean.

a It’s not entirely clear how the lagoon water can be cooled enough to make a difference for residents without chilling and killing off the corals at the same time.

b According to the World Bank, the average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the Maldives in 2021 was just over $10,000.

c The ISA comprises 167 member states and the European Union.

d The UK government dragged its heals on the matter, amid considerable pushback including from those in power. For instance, in a letter to The Times in July 2023, former Conservative Party leader William Hague wrote: “The right question to ask at the International Seabed Authority is not ‘Shall we find a way to do this?’ but rather ‘Are you completely mad?’” Finally, in October that year, the UK government capitulated and announced its support for the proposed moratorium on mining licenses.

e The United States is not a member of the ISA and so does not attend these meetings.

Epilogue

Not long ago, I went swimming at one of my favourite spots in Brittany, where I scramble over rocks, pull on a dive mask, and slip into the cold sea to explore the seaweed-covered rocks, search for the tiniest cowrie shells, and watch for the tails of pipefish twisting through the greenery. It was the eighth of August, a perfect date because for the first time after several years of exploring this part of the French Atlantic coast, I saw an octopus.

It caught my attention with a wave of one of its eight arms, and before my conscious mind had time to register what it was, the inner voice that always narrates my underwater explorations silently called out, Suckers! If I hadn’t seen that supple, tapering arm with circular suction cups lined up along it, largest at the body end and leading to impossibly tiny ones at the tip, I’m sure I would have missed the octopus entirely. It shrank into the seaweed garden and became almost invisible, matching its skin colour and texture to its surroundings. All I could make out was one eye watching me, white with a horizontal black iris striped across it.

That octopus encounter, and another I had a little while later, sum up for me the strange hybrid mix of glories and troubles of the Anthropocene ocean.

It was a common octopus. Historically, it was considered a single, cosmopolitan species living in disjointed populations in temperate seas across the globe. However, recent studies of its genes revealed the common octopus to be what’s known as a cryptic species complex, a group whose members all look alike but are dissimilar enough at a molecular level to count as separate species, in this case at least six octopuses that live along different coastlines around the world. Octopuses that live in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic between North Africa and the English Channel have kept the original name, Octopus vulgaris. Others have been assigned new names, including Octopus americanus in the Americas; Octopus djinda and Octopus tetricus in southwest and southeast Australia, respectively; and Octopus sinensis in the East China Sea. These species are all sensitive to climate change in slightly different ways, which means that in future warmer seas, some will do better than others. Some octopuses are predicted to lose only small parts of their habitats where the waters will become too hot for them. Some species are expected to shift towards the poles. And some could disappear from large parts of their current range. By the end of the century, unless carbon emissions are brought down, species from this cryptic complex could be lost entirely from the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, where octopus fisheries are a significant source of food and income.

Over the past forty years, the global catch of octopuses has doubled. As other ocean species have become overexploited, octopuses are increasingly taking their place in seafood markets. There are also plans to begin farming Octopus vulgaris for food, despite huge worries about the ethics and ecological impacts of mass-rearing these highly intelligent and notoriously solitary predators. A company in the Spanish Canary Islands intends to produce a million octopuses a year in a thousand communal tanks inside a two-storey building at the port of Las Palmas. The animals will be killed by plunging them into freezing water, a method that is untested in octopuses but has been shown to cause a slow, cruel death in fish.

I choose not to eat octopuses, for various reasons including that thoughtful look in their eyes. That’s not to say that I think nobody should eat them. It is possible to catch wild octopuses sustainably and ethically. But that’s not what’s happening in Brittany. When huge numbers suddenly appeared along the coast in 2021, an octopus-fishing bonanza began. Before then, octopuses were not a common sight along the northwestern coast of France. Within a couple of years, fishers were catching hundreds of tons and earning a fortune selling them to fish markets in Spain (for now, there’s no appetite for poulpes in Breton cuisine). Nobody yet knows exactly what caused this population boom, or how long it might last, but it has happened before. At the very end of the nineteenth century, there was an octopus frenzy in southern England and northern France. The London Fishing Gazette reported in October 1900 that octopuses had been so abundant along the Brittany coast the previous year that it was almost impossible to turn over a stone on a beach without finding one or more hiding underneath. After a storm, hundreds of dead octopuses washed up on the shore and were carted away to sell as manure.

Another British newspaper explained in 1900 that the presence of so many octopuses was due to the “excessive heat of recent summers.” Warming seas today, especially during the winter months, could have a part to play in the rise of octopuses around the coasts of France and England, potentially allowing more of their larvae to survive and grow to adulthood. Another factor could be a general lack of large predators in the region, such as seals and dolphins, which might otherwise have kept octopus numbers in check. While a direct link can’t be drawn, it’s a poignant fact that while octopuses are plentiful in France, dolphins have been washing up dead and mutilated along the same stretch of coastline, likely after they were caught and drowned in industrial trawl nets and then dumped over the sides of fishing vessels.

In the late 1890s, British and French fishers complained bitterly about the surfeit of octopuses stealing their catches of crabs, lobsters, and oysters, describing them as pests and loathsome beasts. More than a century later, fishers in Brittany are again infuriated that these eight-armed cephalopods still have a fondness for feasting on catches inside fishing nets and traps.

I witnessed this brazen habit a few days after seeing that first octopus. I took my nephew and his partner for a snorkel at the octopus spot, hoping we might get lucky and see it again. We searched through the seaweeds, and I pointed out sea stars and blue-rayed limpets, but we didn’t spy any seaweed mimics watching us back. My nephew did, though, come across a cluster of abalone on the sand, and he dived down and picked up a half dozen big, gleaming shells. Until then, I had only ever seen live abalone a few times and had never found such large, intact shells; they’re flattened and ear-shaped, and these ones fit all the way over my ear with room to spare.

The abalones we found were treasure enough, so we headed back towards the beach. On the way, my nephew’s partner was the first to spot the fish trap resting on the kelp a few feet from the surface. Sitting inside was a large red octopus. Several of its arms were wrapped around chunks of bait, including a fish’s head and tail. The octopus could easily have climbed out of the trap, but it seemed content where it was, surrounded by its free feast. For long, peaceful minutes, we watched the octopus in stunned silence, while it huffed and breathed through its siphon tube, and we held tight to our abalone shells. I now keep one of them on top of the piano, where the light catches its oily, iridescent interior and casts bright dots through the row of eight holes through which the living abalone reproduced, pooped, and breathed—right up until the moment it was prised off a rock by, I bet, a strong, suckered arm. The pile of shells we found on the seabed must have been a midden of the leftovers from abalone feasts, piled up outside an octopus’s den. I like my shell all the more knowing that the creature inside was probably eaten by an octopus. I’ll go back next summer to see if I can find some more.