By Dr. David Soud and Dr. Ian Ralby

Law enforcement officials are accustomed to interdicting shipments of precursor chemicals used in drug production. The chemicals used for illegal fishing, however, tend to go unchecked. This is partly because those substances, from bleach to cyanide to fertilizers, have no immediately obvious links to fishing. Yet maritime authorities need to attend more closely to the dangers posed by chemical fishing. The practice is extremely hard to detect, and it inflicts lasting damage on marine environments, both to specific species and to coral reefs. To understand this dynamic, one might begin with the lobster.

The spiny lobster, also known in various places as the rock lobster, Florida lobster, langosta or langostino, sea crayfish, or crawfish, is one of the premier high-value seafood catches in the Caribbean. In the Bahamas alone, the spiny lobster industry is worth nearly USD 100 million, providing employment for thousands of fishers.¹ Extrapolate that across the region, and the incentives for illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) lobstering become obvious.

Though there have been efforts at conservation and management, numerous indicators suggest that pervasive overfishing of Caribbean spiny lobsters occurs throughout the region. One recent study identified the spiny lobster as “fully exploited in The Bahamas, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize and Anguilla…[and] overexploited in Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia.”² Another found that in Jamaica, gaps in reporting and enforcement had led to overfishing.³ And a 2019 OPESCA/CRFM/COPACO report concluded that “IUU fishing is one of the major factors contributing to unsustainable fishing of spiny lobster. However, IUU fishing has not been systematically and reliably quantified in the region.”⁴

Within this larger issue, a particular form of lobstering merits heightened vigilance: using noxious chemicals to subdue lobsters or force them from hiding and make them easier to collect. While other chemicals have been identified, including a blend of household detergent and gasoline, the most common chemical used in illegal lobstering by far is bleach.⁵ If one can use chemicals to stun lobsters or force them into the open, one’s catch rate, and hence profits, will grow. Prolonged dipping of lobsters in bleach solution is also used to remove eggs from illegally harvested female lobsters.⁶ The practice of using chemicals to increase yield appears to have been found nearly everywhere lobsters are harvested and is not limited to the Caribbean. In 2022, the governor of North Carolina issued a proclamation banning the practice, but given the uncertain health of lobster fisheries in the Caribbean, the practice poses a particular challenge in that region.⁷

Although this technique has been used by poachers for quite some time, the range and scale of bleach lobstering in the Caribbean is impossible to calculate from available data. Certainly, this issue has been deemed significant enough to warrant specific legal measures since the 1980s, as with the Bahamas’ 1986 Fisheries Resources Regulations.⁸ A 2003 study pronounced the use of bleach and detergent to harvest lobsters in Turks and Caicos as “widespread” but offered no granular data.⁹ Unfortunately, the activity itself is extremely hard to detect, as only small quantities of bleach or other chemicals, often deposited from small plastic bottles into reef crevices where lobsters den,  are sufficient to force the crustaceans into the open or stun them for easier capture.¹⁰ Cases in recent years include the 2021 arrest of three Haitian fishers caught using bleach in Turks and Caicos waters. They were fortuitously caught in the act by Fisheries officers who were taking the Minister of Tourism, Environment, Heritage, Maritime, Gaming and Disaster Management for a tour of the country’s lobster fisheries.¹¹ Social media, however, provide sometimes alarming anecdotal accounts, such as a 2019 Facebook group post by a Florida boater who claimed to have seen bleaching activity in the waters around Bimini: “Another year, another 50 bottles of bleach floating around the ocean during lobster season….we saw about 5 mother ships and dozens of small boats all over Bimini and no BDF (Bahamas Defense Force) to enforce the laws. All our usual spots cleaned out before the season started.”¹² Though uncorroborated, anecdotal accounts such as this paint a concerning picture of unchecked illegal lobstering.

Bleach lobstering has negative impacts beyond the detrimental effects it causes on lobster populations and the ability of Caribbean nations to regulate lobster harvest. While bleach has been used fraudulently to conceal spoilage in seafood, placing consumers at risk of potentially deadly bacterial infections, the residual amounts of the active ingredient in liquid bleach, sodium hypochlorite, in a lobster caught using bleach are below that threshold, and well below the levels required for human toxicity.¹³ Far more problematic is the effect of even modest amounts of bleach on marine environments.

Bleach is devastating to the coral reefs that form the main Caribbean habitat of spiny lobsters. It kills coral and other crucial organisms in reef systems, leading to takeover by algae in what is called a coral-algal phase shift.¹⁴ The vibrant, colorful life of a flourishing coral reef gives way to suffocating algae blooms. Worse yet, the effects tend to be long-lasting. One fisheries officer in the Bahamas said that, in 18 years of work with marine ecosystems, he had never seen a reef recover from being chemically bleached.¹⁵

It is for this reason that some Caribbean nations have taken steps to dissuade the practice. For example, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), the two Caribbean jurisdictions where bleaching lobsters has historically been most pervasive, have instituted identical, and steep, penalties for the practice: a fine of USD 50,000 and/or one year in prison, or both. In the Bahamas, Fisheries Act 2020 categorizes bleach as a “noxious substance” that requires written permission from authorities to even possess aboard a boat, while in TCI the possession of bleach while in a fishery, with any intent to use it for capturing marine life, is expressly illegal. Given that lobsters can be field-tested for bleach quickly and reliably, fishers using bleach in particular can be caught after the fact rather than in the act.¹⁶ Yet bleaching still occurs.

Despite the efforts of the Bahamas and TCI to address this unlawful practice, these are merely two jurisdictions among many throughout the Caribbean region. Spiny lobsters inhabit the entire Caribbean. The question therefore becomes whether using bleach, a technique known to generate a higher success rate, is limited to only these fisheries where it has gained some attention, when it could be practiced in any area in the region. Jurisdictions such as Venezuela, which far outranks any other state in Latin America and the Caribbean in the IUU Fishing Index and has reportedly hosted rapacious fishing of protected marine species, largely remain opaque.¹⁷  Heightened vigilance for instances of bleach lobstering is therefore warranted. But indicators and evidence of this practice can be challenging to discern.

The reality that coral reefs in the Caribbean are succumbing to a different sort of bleaching due to rising seawater temperatures is one such challenge.  Thus, global warming can serve to conceal the traces of chemical fishing. Another challenge is that the ingredients for this practice are ubiquitous. Tracing supply chains of bleach or gasoline will uncover nothing; nor is a bottle of bleach on a boat likely to draw unwanted attention when relatively few authorities think in terms of its possible use on lobsters. After all, boats need cleaning and disinfecting, too. As a result, the use of bleach, detergent, or gasoline is distinct from other forms of destructive chemical fishing, such as the use of cyanide to stun tropical fish for capture, which kills not only fish but coral, or of phosphates and nitrates to make explosives for “blast fishing,” which kills marine life indiscriminately.¹⁸ The latter two are also practiced in the Caribbean, but cannot be easily concealed.

In an ideal scenario, there would be no bleaching of lobsters in the Caribbean. The next best option would see the practice of bleaching limited to one or two fisheries, where competent authorities are aware of the practice and trained to identify and stop it. That appears to be the consensus on the current status of the practice. But given the poor state of monitoring and data collection throughout Caribbean lobster fisheries, the potential profits involved for fishers facing depleted stocks, and the difficulty of catching perpetrators, we cannot truly be sure of the extent of bleach lobstering, any more than we can be certain of the extent to which other forms of illegal chemical fishing are devastating marine ecosystems throughout the Caribbean. Stakeholders in monitoring, enforcement, and conservation across the region should keep this type of destructive fishing activity on their radar screens, and, in consultation with those jurisdictions whose fisheries have already suffered from bleach lobstering, develop effective measures to track and counter its practice.

Dr. David Soud is Head of Resource Responsibility at Auxilium Worldwide, a charitable nonprofit focused on good and just governance, sustainable development, resource stewardship, and human security. He is a leading expert in the criminal exploitation of natural resources, with special expertise in countering illicit activities linked with extractives and fisheries.

Dr. Ian Ralby is President of Auxilium Worldwide and head of its Ocean Governance arm.  He is a globally recognized expert in maritime law and security with particular expertise in identifying and countering threats at sea.

References

1. Marine Stewardship Council. 2025. “The Bahamas Spiny Lobster Fishery.” https://fisheries.msc.org/en/fisheries/the-bahamas-spiny-lobster-fishery/

2. FAO. 2019. Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission/FAO Comisión Central de Pesca para el Atlántico Centro-Occidental. 2019. Report of the second meeting of the OSPESCA/WECAFC/CRFM/CFMC Working Group on Caribbean Spiny Lobster, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 21–23 March 2018/Informe de la segunda reunión del Grupo de Trabajo de OSPESCA/COPACO/CRFM/CFMC sobre la Langosta Espinosa del Caribe, Santo Domingo, República Dominicana, 21-23 de marzo 2018. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Report/Informe de Pesca y Acuicultura. No. 1264. Bridgetown. 68 pp. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

3. Sharon Hutchinson and Alexander Girvan, ‘Jamaica Caribbean Spiny Lobster Value Chain Analysis Report’, CANARI, 2021,  https://canari.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Jamaica-CbeanSpinyLobsterVCA_StewardFish_Final.pdf

4. Joint Report on Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries for the Caribbean Spiny Lobster, June 2019, https://www.fao.org/fi/static-media/MeetingDocuments/WECAFC/WECAFC2019/17/Ref.35e.pdf

5. Wilson, David T., et al. 2006, “A Preliminary Assessment of the Efficacy of a Chlorine Bleach Detection Method for use in Spiny Lobster (Panulirus argus) Fisheries,” 57^th Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute, https://proceedings.gcfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/gcfi_57-61.pdf

6. Ibid.

7. North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Proclamation Re: Spiny Lobster – Commercial and Recreational, April 1, 2022, https://www.deq.nc.gov/marine-fisheries/fisheries-management-proclamations/2022/spiny-lobster-commercial-and-recreational/open  

8. Government of the Bahamas, Fisheries Resources (Jurisdiction and Conservation) Regulations, Section 19, 1986, https://laws.bahamas.gov.bs/cms/images/LEGISLATION/SUBORDINATE/1986/1986-0010/1986-0010.pdf

9. Rudd, Murray A. “Fisheries Landings and Trade of the Turks and Caicos Islands,” Fisheries Centre Research Reports (2003), https://www.seaaroundus.org/doc/CatchReconstruction/EEZ/TurksCaicos-Rudd-2003.pdf

10. Wilson et al.

11. Hamilton, Deandrea, “Three local fishermen caught bleaching coral reef by Minister & Deputy Premier,” Magnetic Media, August 9, 2021, https://magneticmediatv.com/2021/08/three-local-fishermen-caught-bleaching-coral-reef-by-minister-deputy-premier/

12. Bahamas, Land and Sea, “Ocean pollution during lobster season in Bimini,” Facebook, August 5, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/groups/bahamlandsea/posts/1349017365280115/

13. Chung et al., “Health effects of sodium hypochlorite: review of published case reports,” Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology 2022; 37(1): March 2022, https://eaht.org/journal/view.php?doi=10.5620/eaht.2022006

14. Ibid.

15. Hamilton.

16. Wilson et al.

17. IUU Fishing Risk Index, “2025 Results,” n.d., https://iuufishingindex.net/ranking; Byrd, Nicole, et al. Operation STELLA MARIS: Investigating Shark Fin Trafficking Networks in Latin America and East Asia Through the Lens of Environmental Crime Convergence, Investigative Report, Earth League International, 2024, https://earthleagueinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ELI-Operation-STELLA-MARIS-Investigative-Report-22-April-2024-1.pdf

18. Waddell, J, and A. Clarke, The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2008, 2008, NOAA/NCCOS Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment, https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/data_reports/the-state-of-coral-reef-ecosystems-of-the-united-states-and-pacific-freely-associated-states-2008/

Featured image: A Caribbean spiny lobster. (NOAA Fisheries)

By Drake Long

On April 29, a small seabed mining enterprise known as The Metals Company (TMC) formally submitted an application to NOAA to commence commercial-scale mining in an area of the ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.

This followed an executive order issued by the White House explicitly ordering the expedition of seabed mining permits in international waters under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act – a little-known law passed in 1980. The Metals Company cited this law in its press release, stating it was submitting its commercial-recovery permit precisely under the terms of that act. On first glance, this would seem a strange, but necessary measure for the U.S. to procure critical minerals it sorely lacks.

There is no firm classification for what counts as a critical mineral. The Energy Act of 2020 defined critical minerals as “minerals, elements, substances, or materials” that were necessary for national or economic security of the United States, and if supply of said material were disrupted in some way, it would have dire implications for the U.S. manufacturing of defense goods or a negative effect on the overall U.S. economy. Nebulous as this category is, critical minerals have taken on new significance as of late due to the overwhelming dominance of China in the extraction and processing of them. As of 2025, China has the outsized ability to cut off, or severely constrain, the supply of 46 out of 84 different materials on the critical mineral list to the United States. Not coincidentally, China has also shown the willingness to use this dominant position in the commodity market, such as by restricting the sale of seven critical minerals to the U.S. back in April.

The seabed mining industry has stepped in and offered themselves as one of several proposed solutions to this problem. Unfortunately, these firms are mostly pitching false promises.

Seabed mining, for research purposes and experimentation, has occurred since 1970. What is unexpected about the current moment in the seabed mining industry is that companies are aggressively pursuing permits for commercial-recovery. That entails mining the seabed for profit – and elevating the practice to an industrial activity at the bottom of the sea.

For the past two years, I have been researching and writing a book on states’ interests in the seabed, and emerging issues affecting those parts of the seabed under international waters that were first dubbed “a common heritage of mankind” at the United Nations in 1967. Commercial activity on the seabed is a touchy subject due to concerns about its effects on deep-sea habitats. During most of my time researching this book project, the wind has been at the back of the environmentalist movement.

There are three types of deep sea environments considered viable for seabed mining: Hydrothermal vents that naturally grow polymetallic sulphides, metalliferous muds in shallower parts of the seabed, and abyssal plains with volcanic crusts or large, scattered deposits of polymetallic nodules. The most notable example of the latter is the Clarion Clipperton Zone, a vast area in the South Pacific under the jurisdiction of the International Seabed Authority, where TMC has applied for a plot to commercially mine in.

All three of these environments are some of the most fragile on the planet, with organisms and ecology completely untouched by human activity until recently. Research over the past five years has shown that everything from dustclouds to the mere noise generated by seabed mining activity can destroy seabed habitats and take an extremely long time to recover from.

The vast, vast majority of undersea life that would be affected by this activity is completely unknown – all scientists I spoke to in the course of research noted that there is insufficient information on undersea life to accurately characterize the environmental impact of seabed mining in the South Pacific, and research continues to reveal the fragility and uniqueness of life deep beneath the sea. Because of this, energy has been building behind a moratorium on seabed mining entirely and as of 2025, 37 countries have joined that movement, with others requesting a likeminded ‘precautionary pause’ instead.

A U.S. permit for commercial mining in the Clarion Clipperton Zone would seem to signal a turn against this anti-mining tide. However, the reality is more nuanced – governments looking to seabed mining for new sources of critical minerals are likely setting themselves up for disappointment and should review the series of events that brought the seabed-watching community here for signs of failure in the future. More than anything else, this latest push by private seabed mining companies is a desperation move to revive a rapidly failing speculative business model.

To start, one should think of the seabed in one of two categories: the international seabed, dubbed ‘the Area’ by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the seabed that a country enjoys economic rights to under UNCLOS, as part of its continental shelf. The International Seabed Authority is a unique international legal body tasked with overseeing the former.

The International Seabed: Tough Crust to Crack

Momentum for seabed mining in international waters died in August 2024 with the election of a new Secretary-General of the ISA. That election capped off a years-long push to expedite commercial-scale seabed mining since June of 2021, when the tiny Pacific Island nation of Nauru said it would grant a license to a subsidiary of The Metals Company to begin seabed mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.

When Nauru threatened to grant TMC its license, it triggered a ‘two-year rule’ within the UN document establishing ISA procedures that stated the ISA had to finalize its regulations, or Mining Code, by the two-year mark after a commercial license was granted. If it failed to do so, it was ambiguous as to what authority the ISA would have to halt operations if The Metals Company went ahead and mined anyway.

Despite the sudden urgency, the Mining Code was not finished by the July 2023 deadline. To stave off the possibility of Nauru and the private sector pushing forward with unregulated, commercial-scale mining, most members of the ISA unified and used that year’s ISA Council meeting to kick the can down the road and issue a revised timeline for the formal adoption of the Mining Code instead. That timeline called for the Mining Code to be finished by the end of July 2025 – and the ISA ultimately did not succeed in doing so, to little surprise to those I have spoken to who regularly observe ISA proceedings.

This was not the best outcome for the private seabed mining industry, especially as the initial pause on deregulated mining occurred nearly concurrent with the finalization of another UN treaty titled the Boundaries Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement, which will come into effect in January 2026.

The BBNJ, much like the ISA itself, was created to settle unfinished business from the original conference that established UNCLOS. Namely, how to safeguard and treat all areas of the ocean outside of a country’s allotted maritime territory. This included international waters and the seabed within the ISA’s jurisdiction. While the draft Mining Code contains regulations intended to minimize the environmental impact of extractive activity on the seafloor, the BBNJ Agreement is far more stringent in terms of deterring seabed mining on the basis of protecting deep-sea ecological diversity. With its passage, mining companies already facing one set of regulations now need to contend with an eventual second.

The 2024 ISA Secretary-General election was the final factor signaling the nadir of the international seabed mining enterprise. The previous ISA Secretary-General, frustrations aside, was generally regarded among members as more of a seabed mining enthusiast than not, and for this reason he was nominated for an unprecedented third term by the pro-mining Kiribati even though he was a British citizen. He lost to Leticia Carvalho, who has made it clear she will not rush a Mining Code and has continually stressed the need for proper regulation of seabed mining above all else.

This brings us to the present. Seabed mining under the ISA process in international waters remains an aspiration for now.

The Continental Shelf: Sovereign, Not Soft

Given their status as glorified start-ups in a speculative industry with a shallow pool of capital to draw from, seabed mining companies making headlines today cannot wait for a Mining Code to be finalized, nor can they deal with all the provisions and legal issues the BBNJ Agreement will saddle them with. For a time, they instead turned to the lower-hanging fruit – mining the continental shelf that is strictly within a country’s jurisdiction.

The ISA, Mining Code, and UNCLOS are complicating factors for seabed mining only in international waters. Within the 200-nautical mile zone of a country’s continental shelf, national governments instead determine whether companies can mine their seafloor.

The logical next step for any company looking to mine the seabed then is to pursue mining licenses on a country’s continental shelf, outside any regulations the ISA or BBNJ could create. To clarify, a country’s continental shelf under UNCLOS is a legal, and not a geophysical, limit. Any country can claim a continental shelf out to 200 nautical miles from their coastline, and this can extend an additional 150 nautical miles outward if certain criteria are met. In the scientific sense, this means a country has economic rights to an area of the deep sea that is inclusive of a continental shelf, continental slope, continental rise – and even the deep seabed. All of these physical features are rolled into one legal definition of a “continental shelf” under UNCLOS.

While somewhat confusing, what this means in practice is that some countries have economic rights to areas of the deep seabed that are ripe for seabed mining. The ideal countries for the entrepreneurial seabed wildcatter to pursue would have massive maritime entitlements under UNCLOS close to known seabed reserves, lax regulation, and a small economy eager for foreign investment.

Traditionally, some Pacific Island countries (PICs) seemed to be auditioning for this role. Countries like Kiribati and the Cook Islands have overtly signaled their openness to the industry. The Cook Islands alone has a massive continental shelf, nearly 2 million square kilometers in size, spread between 15 tiny islands. Its continental shelf abuts the Clarion Clipperton Zone, where most known reserves lie. It held the first ever Underwater Minerals Conference in September to bring industry and governments together solely to discuss the prospects for seabed mining. Kiribati took the extraordinary step of abolishing a 115,000-square mile marine protected area around the Phoenix Islands, partially to allow for the possibility of seabed mining and other extractive activities there. And other Pacific Island countries such as Nauru, as previously mentioned, pushed the ISA to allow for commercial mining as soon as possible.

Probably the most important thing to examine during this period is the failure of private companies to actualize a seabed mining industry in Cook Islands. Despite having considerable history in the country, a very friendly government, and more-than-a-little ability to shape regulations there in their favor, the Cook Islands ultimately chose a different partner for its deep sea mining ambitions – the People’s Republic of China. The two countries signed an MOU in February that prominently featured exploration, extraction, and development of minerals on the Cook Islands’ vast continental shelf.

The reason private companies are now cut out of the Cook Islands market in favor of China is the same reason relaxing regulations on seabed mining ultimately benefits China in the long-run. China offers a suite of sweeteners alongside any mining deals that the private sector cannot compete with. This is as true with its terrestrial mining and oil-gas giants as it is with the speculative seabed mining industry. China simply has more money and capacity.

Wildcatters Versus Titans

Seabed mining is often touted as a means to alleviate the U.S. dependence on China for critical minerals. The Metals Company CEO said as much during his congressional testimony in April. This is heavily misleading. There are substantial reserves of these metals on the seafloor and close to shore in some spots, including on an area of the Gorda Ridge identified by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s. But China’s dominance in the rare earths market does not come from its reserves. It comes from its processing capability. Over 80 percent of all rare earths on the world market are processed by Chinese companies. China processes over 90 percent of all graphite, and about 67 percent of the world’s cobalt and lithium, all of which are critical minerals for emerging commercial and military technologies.

The numbers do not differ much, no matter what mineral one looks at. China has cornered the market on simple processing of many different ores, and while other countries such as the DRC, Myanmar, and Australia all have significant reserves of these metals on their own, they overwhelmingly are still shipped to China for processing.

There is little reason to see how opening a new reserve of critical minerals changes this dynamic at all – especially because processing seabed minerals costs quite a bit more. The initial step in processing ore is to simply separate the actual usable mineral from anything else. Water depth, salinity, and a variety of other environmental factors can make deep-sea minerals, even when extracted, difficult to separate out in this way, and processing facilities normally used for terrestrial ore cannot put them on the same production line. This means that any commercial-scale processor for these critical minerals would probably operate at a loss without massive, well-financed state-backing.

This is the sort of thing China, with its vertically-integrated supply chains for all aspects of metal extraction and processing, as well as its patient capital approach to bankrolling initially unprofitable commercial enterprises, would be able to do. It is not something the private sector is prepared to do. Other strong contenders for building a seabed mineral processing industry are Norway, India, and Japan – both countries with well-trod, well-funded industrial policies that fit the scale of the profitability problem with seabed mining. These countries are also non-coincidentally pioneering their seabed mining models with the help of aggressive state-backing and public institutions, crowding out the previous private sector players.

Even if one came into a large processing industry quickly, there are already reserves of critical minerals out there that are not owned by China – and they are terrestrial, not undersea, which points to another aspect of seabed mining that should give pause to advocates. Seabed mining is sometimes described as more environmentally-friendly than the mining that goes on inland. Truthfully, terrestrial mining on land is horrifically destructive, and in areas with large cobalt reserves like the DRC, child exploitation and unsafe working conditions are rampant. If there was a way to limit these activities, that would be a benefit to humankind. Seabed mining advocates state that if their industry were deregulated, terrestrial mining could end, and these minerals could instead be mined off the seafloor.

However, there is no evidence that terrestrial mining would stop even if seabed mining were permitted. In the course of writing a book on the topic, I have not encountered a single person in or familiar with the critical mineral mining industry that believes any mines on land would close if new reserves from the seabed started circulating. There is no incentive for any mining company working in cobalt or REE reserves to do so.

On the contrary, some speculated that it would lead to more, not less, terrestrial mining. If seabed mining introduced new reserves into world markets, mining companies could just cut corners or mine more on-land to ensure they still made a profit – and in many cases may not need to do so, as seabed reserves are slower to introduce to the market and more expensive to extract. Many of the companies backing seabed mining are more traditional mining companies in any case, and nobody I am aware of believes they are investing in the seabed mining industry with the intent to shutter their most profitable enterprises elsewhere. For countries that have large on-land reserves of critical minerals but lack the technology or know-how to engage in seabed mining, the market logic behind halting mining is nonexistent.

Conclusion: The Wild, Wild South Pacific

Most observers of the seabed mining industry I have interviewed are keenly aware of companies like TMC, their business history, and their profit margins. They tend to view their business models as unworkable, and vulnerable to a host of legal and political pressures. Private seabed mining companies do not own their own equipment and ships, instead requiring other companies like Allseas to provide it for their use instead. They are understood to be constantly running out of cash, given how the commercial seabed mining industry is nonexistent, and are thus starving without constant injections of private capital. There is more than a little desperation in the way these companies are working now to secure mineral rights and commercialize seabed mining.

Private seabed mining companies have tried two approaches so far. Step one was to work the international institutions to get a favorable regulatory environment, which has failed so far. Step two was to work with sovereign nations to mine their continental shelf, which is endangered by the entry of bigger players.

The third step appears to be finding legal loopholes. To clarify, commercial mining in international waters under the ISA process is not possible right now. But the United States did not ratify UNCLOS, and is not a member of the ISA. This is why TMC submitted a permit under a domestic U.S. law, and not through the ISA. Any permit it grants a private company to mine in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, which is under the ISA’s jurisdiction, would be legally dubious and represents the private sector taking advantage of that grey area to get around the normal approval process – an approval process that was actually crafted by the United States during UNCLOS negotiations in the first place.

Using domestic U.S. law to mine international waters is dubious. Legal analysts are looking at the viability of this for the time being, and the emerging consensus is that TMC may be opening itself up to a raft of punitive measures by UNCLOS signatories that it, its business partners, its supply chain partners, and any other affiliated bodies, operate in. Any minerals it extracts could be of dubious value at best.

Yet the strongest national security argument against commercial seabed mining remains an understanding of who actually benefits from it. The leaders of a seabed mining industry will not be the first-movers like TMC, or any other small private actor.

The largest, most well-funded seabed mining company would be China Minmetals, a highly-prominent Chinese state-owned enterprise pumping an incredible amount of money into seabed mining technology and with its own exploration licenses issued by the ISA. If the purpose of permitting seabed mining is to reduce dependence on China, what does it mean when China also enters the seabed mining industry, and to great success? Companies like Minmetals also have the benefit of a processing and final product assembly supply chain tied to its terrestrial mining component.

While smaller companies like TMC have already conducted exploratory mining, there is no profitable path toward commercial-scale seabed mining for them. They are start-ups still in a speculative industry. They have tested and proven the technology, but for the reasons stated above, they would make less of a profit and at a steep cost than any terrestrial mining company. While intermittently backed by mining and large maritime shipping companies, there is not a consistent flow of capital to maintain operations forever, nor is it reliable enough to scale into a profitable industry from. Maersk notably abandoned TMC in 2023 after environmental concerns over seabed mining heated up and the broader seabed mining enterprise started to come into question.

The current step toward permitting under U.S. law should not be considered wind in the sails of the private seabed mining sector. It is instead a desperation move, and not one guaranteed to work out. Absent state backing, these companies cannot survive, and it is for this reason they continually sell to unaware countries the promise that with a little reciprocal support, they can turn into leaders of a new, emerging industry.

But this is not likely to happen. The smaller companies testing the technology now instead seem to be paving the way for a much larger company, such as Minmetals or its Japanese, Indian, or perhaps Norwegian counterparts, to move in the future and successfully scale upward to the commercial level.

Drake Long is currently writing a book on international seabed issues, the deep-sea domain, and security. He is also a non-resident Senior Associate with the China Warfighting Initiative, Marine Corps War College. The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent official views of Marine Corps University or any government department.

Featured Photo: Manganese nodules embedded in the seabed (mage courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2019 Southeastern U.S. Deep-sea Exploration)

By Jamie Jones and Ian Ralby

What good is the world’s most advanced “dark targeting” platform to uncover previously untraceable vessels if the local navy, coast guard, or marine police cannot stop the crime?

Instead of being wooed by “game-changing” technologies, maritime security professionals should focus on ensuring their organizations can perform critical functions first. Similarly, professionals who partner with chronically under-resourced organizations should focus on assisting with basic functions instead of dangling “silver bullets” that promise to solve all their woes.

The Problem

The maritime security sector is under a constant barrage of hype about “game-changing” technology, particularly when it comes to maritime domain awareness (MDA). Maritime domain awareness is the effective understanding of anything associated with the maritime domain that could impact security, safety, the economy, or the marine environment. Several technological platforms are purported to “revolutionize” MDA with the promise of significantly improving countries’ abilities to govern their waters. Prominent examples include synthetic aperture radar (SAR), radio frequency identification (RFID), electro-optical (EO) satellite imagery, and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that use data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) to evaluate vessels’ historical actions and predict future behavior. One company purports to be able to “quickly develop machine learning models to solve problems taking place in the vastness of the world’s oceans.” Similarly, new satellite-based technology supplied by the Quad (the United States, Australia, India, and Japan) is expected to help smaller island nations govern their waters.

Being able to watch bad actors on the water is not the same as being able to do anything to stop them. By itself, MDA has little deterrent effect: the waters will still be ungoverned if a country has no way to legally or operationally act upon what it sees. While new MDA technology can be exciting, the siren song of “shiny new toys” risks confusing maritime voyeurism with more assertive and effective action. For many countries, simply watching bad actors harm without the ability to stop them is frustrating. The constant stream of new—but sometimes proprietary or otherwise incompatible—technology can even create a disincentive to act and enable policy procrastination. Some policymakers want the equivalent of closed caption television on the water before they are willing to take action against problems like human trafficking, illegal fishing, and smuggling of drugs and weapons.

Before jumping to advanced technology, it is vital to be able to rigorously and systematically analyze MDA data from any source; have a repeatable, documentable mechanism for sharing that analysis with operators who can act on it promptly; have the capacity to plan and execute interdiction operations in a manner that also collects and preserves evidence; have a well-defined process for handing a maritime case over to the land-based authorities; and, ultimately pursue a legal finish that includes a penalty commensurate with the offense.

Man in the Loop

MDA technology cannot supplant humans; most Maritime Operations Centers (MOCs) run by militaries and law enforcement agencies employ several MDA analysts round-the-clock. These experts are needed to interpret what they see and then communicate their analysis to authorities who can act on this information and knowledge. In countries that lack funding or technical infrastructure for flashy MDA platforms, humans are even more important to the maritime security equation.

A well-trained analyst can, and must, perform functions that technology cannot. For example, to understand what might be happening in the water, the analyst must understand what should be happening. Understanding this context requires knowledge of local customs and culture, knowledge of a particular area’s fishing patterns, shipping routes, the effects of weather, seasonal dynamics, and knowledge of what is “normal” for that area. Indeed, relying only on technology may give the country a false sense of security, seeing some of what is happening in its waters without an in-depth understanding of the context.

Analysts must also be trained in maritime enforcement jurisdiction so they can understand what activities the country can pursue in each of the maritime zones their country has claimed.

Perfect Awareness is Useless without Action

The latest MDA technology often comes with a hefty price tag. Synthetic Aperture Radar capability, for example, is expensive and even analysts who are skilled at using other MDA sources cannot simply look at the blurry images of what amounts to satellite-based radar and make sense of it. That said, a suitably trained analyst looking at such radar captures in combination with other technology to correlate it to AIS data can help gain a clearer understanding of what is happening at sea. But this means that the expensive SAR data has to be paired with other expensive technology and a well-trained analyst for it to be of value. Even if these systems are provided cost-free, and analysts can translate the data into a useful understanding of actionable anomalies, interdictions still cannot occur without vessels on the water.

With initiatives such as the Australian and Japanese Patrol Boat programs, numerous developing nations now have access to vessels well-suited for patrolling their waters. These vessels, however, require well-trained crews, along with funding for fuel and maintenance to make them useful. In some countries, the government’s entire maritime force is required just to operate the vessel, which understandably discourages the frequency of its use. Access to parts, maintenance, fuel, and provisions conspire to keep these vessels pier side. Consistent funding and training for crews and boarding officers to interdict suspect vessels are necessary.

Though not as alluring as slick MDA technology, funding for the basic needs required to patrol waters should be prioritized over new technologies. Without basic operational capacity and capability, no amount of MDA will make a country’s waters safer, more secure, more stable, or more prosperous.

The other component to action besides “boots on deck” is the legal finish or the successful adjudication of a maritime offense. Indeed, a meaningful penalization through an adjudicative process is often the only effective deterrent to criminal activity in a country’s waters.

Behind a properly trained and funded boarding team are investigators trained in maritime cases. The investigators are critical to putting together a prosecutable case. Furthermore, prosecutors must be well-versed and well-trained in maritime law to successfully prosecute maritime crimes. And finally, the law itself must be fit for purpose, addressing the full spectrum of maritime offenses that are being pursued by criminal actors in the country’s waters.

The legal finish requires human resources. Human resources planning is difficult: it takes time to plan how many operations the country may need to conduct each year, and how many people need to be in place and trained to enable said operations. It requires recruiting the right people, funding their training, and then also a plan for retaining them once they are trained. Indeed, human resources are a significant, but necessary investment. Planning and funding for human resources may not sound as glamorous as showcasing the latest drone or artificial intelligence platform. But without human resources, the technology leaves the State’s deterrent capabilities impotent.

Conclusion

Flashy new technologies can be fun to play with, and some are truly useful. Still, they are only part of the equation for providing maritime security, and not necessarily the most important. To be useful, these tools must be paired with institutional capacity to analyze data, share information, plan and execute operations, collect evidence, handover to land authorities, conduct investigations, prosecute, adjudicate, penalize, and, when necessary, both legislate and regulate to account for changes in the security environment. Indeed, it is healthy and helpful to be skeptical of how much any technology will “solve” problems that require human expertise and human responses to be wielded effectively. It behooves those with meager budgets, and those trying to help partners with meager budgets, to focus funding and attention on building the skills and institutions needed to use the MDA technology that is already available, as well as whatever the future may hold. Every State should strive for maximum efficiency, effectiveness, and impact regarding maritime security concerns it can already see before pursuing a heightened visibility that may leave it watching bad actors without the wherewithal to stop them. 

Jamie Jones is a legal institutional capacity-building attorney with the Defense Institute of International Legal Studies (DIILS) focusing on maritime security in the Pacific Island Nations. She earned her undergraduate degree in agriculture from Kansas State University, a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College, and her law degree from Washburn University’s School of Law. 

Dr. Ian Ralby is a recognized expert in maritime and resource security. He has worked in more than 95 countries around the world, often assisting them with developing their maritime domain awareness capacity. He holds a JD from William & Mary and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. 

The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.

Featured Image: The ship Xin Lian Yun Gang seen in the Port of Rotterdam. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)