Two ships arrived in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific in March last year. One was a familiar sight: a huge cruise ship carrying hundreds of tourists to the pristine shores of this nation of 15,000 people. The other, a neon orange vessel carrying complex scientific equipment, was more unusual.
At a nearby dock, Prime Minister Mark Brown and many other prominent citizens had gathered to celebrate the arrival of the smaller ship. For Brown, the cruise represented his country’s worrying dependence on tourism. He described the other ship, owned by an international mining company, as a harbinger of incredible wealth.
The Cook Islands are at the forefront of mining the ocean floor for minerals used in electric car batteries. No attempt has ever been made to exploit these deposits on a large scale, but their reserves are so vast, proponents argue, that extracting them could drive the world’s shift away from fossil fuels.
It would also be transformational for the Cook Islands: Seabed mining could generate tens of billions of dollars for the small country, according to a 2019 study. Its per capita income is about $11,000.
But deep-sea mining faces stiff opposition from environmentalists, who worry it will damage deep-sea ecology. More than 800 scientists have called for a moratorium on this practice, as have France, the United Kingdom and large companies such as Google and BMW.
For two years, mining companies have been studying the feasibility of mining the seabed of the Cook Islands. The government is set to decide in 2027 whether to allow it, and faces growing pressure at home and abroad from critics who say it is rushing to adopt an unproven practice.
“The government is aggressively promoting deep-sea mining,” said Duncan Currie, an adviser to the High Seas Alliance and other international conservation organizations. “They appear to be pursuing deep seabed mining regardless of the adverse effects.”
Brown insisted that the Cook Islands have not committed to mining.
Criticism “can sometimes be annoying,” he said in an interview. Exploring the possibilities of deep seabed mining, she said, “is part of our journey toward sovereign independence.”
In the past, he has responded to his critics more forcefully.
“The same countries that destroy our planet through decades of profit-driven development, and to this day continue their profit-driven actions and neglect their climate change responsibilities, are making demands,” he said. at a 2022 conference. “It’s condescending and implies that we are either too dumb or too greedy to know what we are doing.”
The Cook Islands, a chain of 15 islands that was once a colony of New Zealand, have been self-governing since 1965. Shortly after achieving that status, which falls short of full independence, international research vessels began exploring the territorial waters. of the country, covering around 756,000 square miles, roughly comparable to the landmass of Mexico.
The researchers found a seabed carpeted with rocks or nodules the size of an avocado, rich in cobalt and manganese. Each nodule grows the thickness of a credit card approximately every million years. Until recent technological advances, these rocks were unreachable.
Over the past decade, the Cook Islands have been chasing those nodules in fits and starts. In 2012, it created an agency to solicit mining proposals for its own waters. In 2022, it granted permits to three companies to survey the waters and test mining technology.
Other countries that have taken steps to study their seabed are Japan and Norway. Most private companies focus on mining in international waters, but regulations are still being developed to allow this.
Supporters argue that scrubbing the ocean floor is the best way to get more of the minerals used in electric vehicle batteries and reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. They add that mining nodules from the ocean floor with proper controls would cause less environmental damage than open-pit mines, which often also disrupt surrounding communities.
Seabed mining, which involves crawling machines that crawl across the seabed, sucking up rocks and expelling plumes of sediment, terrifies Teina Rongo, a marine biologist who runs an environmental NGO in the Cook Islands capital, Avarua, in the Rarotonga Island.
“Our creation story is that the bottom of the ocean is where life began,” he said. “How many creatures are we going to destroy down there if we suck up all that sand?”
Mr. Rongo had just finished teaching a class on climate change to schoolchildren at a community center, where straw turtles adorned the walls and scuba gear dripped water on the floor. Speaking to a journalist about what he called the dangers of mining, he pointed to Nauru, another small Pacific nation.
Rich deposits of phosphates, a fertilizer ingredient, once brought huge wealth to Nauru, but mismanagement and alleged corruption plunged the nation into poverty. Now its people live in a desolate, strip-mined lunar landscape.
Alex Herman, director of the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority, emphasized that her agency was taking a careful, science-based approach to seabed mining. “The Cook Islands are such a special place, our own paradise,” she said, “and we want to be very aware of any unintended consequences or impacts that arise from the progress of this sector.”
Still, some critics say Brown’s administration has become too welcoming to the companies it has allowed to survey the ocean floor. “They both have the same agenda,” said Kelvin Passfield, director of the Te Ipukarea Society, a local environmental group.
Brown rejected that accusation, but critics say there has been evidence of a revolving door between the two sides.
After the mining agency’s former head, Paul Lynch, resigned, a prospecting company, Cook Islands Cobalt, hired his wife, Shona Lynch, as its top executive in the country.
Ms Lynch defended her appointment. “I have my own qualifications,” she said. “I’m not a sit-at-home wife.”
Then last year, Lynch told a local newspaper that another prospector, Moana Minerals, had taken him on vacation aboard its exploration ship while sailing through the Panama Canal (he likened it to a “chance to go to the moon” ). Lynch, who has said he paid for his flights, declined to comment.
Brown said he was careful not to get close to mining industry leaders. But, he added, when “you settle here, you tend to become part of the family. The relationship you would have with companies is very personal.”
The government says it has sent independent observers aboard research ships to ensure the reliability of the companies’ data, which officials say will inform the decision on whether to continue seafloor mining.
The public appears to be evenly divided on the issue, said Rashneel Kumar, editor of Cook Islands News, the country’s largest newspaper.
But many believe they know what the decision will be. Teresa Manarangi-Trott, a cautious supporter of seabed mining, headed a government committee that gathered residents’ opinions on the practice.
“The government has decided that this is going to happen, regardless of what they say,” he said.
Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Peter M. Acland Foundation, a New Zealand-based media charity.