We need a sustainable seabed mining plan

It’s good to know that the Kenyan government is recruiting McKinsey & Co. to design a 20-year national mining strategy, which is intended to position the country as a regional hub, while increasing revenue from an industry that represents only about one per cent of our gross domestic product.

But lets not forget about our Kenya’s undersea minerals. The future of mining may well be on the ocean floor.

As our geologists and international environmental lawyers readily attest, Kenya’s exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf (extending a total of 350 nautical miles), contains untapped natural resources. There are, in all likelihood, of inestimable worth.

Seabed mining, also referred to as deep-sea mining, is the extraction of valuable metals and minerals by stripping away wide swaths of the deep ocean floor using robotic cutting machines.

In recent years, however, commercial interest has grown. Countries and commercial companies are interested in exploiting rich sea floor sources of cobalt, copper, nickel, silver, gold, vanadium, titanium, manganese and rare earth elements.

These are essential ingredients of everyday life, from mobile phone batteries to surgical instruments, engines and TV screens.

In one academic study, Kenya’s continental shelf was shown to contain significant quantities of manganese, copper, nickel, cobalt and methane hydrates (an important energy source of the future).

Of course, we don’t know if these deposits are commercially viable, or whether, advances in exploration technology, namely remote-sensing and airborne geophysical surveys, will identify more mineral deposits.

Nevertheless, existence of these natural deposits gives us reason to make suggestions about what should be addressed in this mining plan.

First, we shouldn’t leave out seabed minerals. Their relevance is growing; it is likely that other countries that are already interested in seabed mining will approach our government seeking partnerships in exploration and collaboration.

We can expect growing attention from places like China, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and India.

Already Kenya participates in several international forums, including the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States-European Union Joint Parliamentary Assembly, United Nations Environmental Programme, ISA and the AU, 1 where seabed mining is often discussed.

Secondly, environmental protection should be paramount. The financial rewards may make deep-sea mining inevitable, yet much of the sea floor and its habitats remain unexplored and unmapped.

As we learn more, we are beginning to realise that the sea floor can contain as many as 1,000 species at a single site, and that mining at such depths can cause localised damage, including crushing living organisms and disturbance of sediment.

There could be further environmental impacts during processing. There is also the uncertainty that habitats and biodiversity may not recover once mining has ceased. We should therefore proceed with caution.

Third, environmental regulation must be efficient in its operation and effective in achieving the desired environmental safeguards. We must proceed with the utmost caution here.

Although many countries have developed dedicated seabed mining laws, we shouldn’t merely cut-and-paste at will, lest we end up with unnecessary conflicts with existing laws, cumbersome regulatory processes or costly duplication.
How would we share the benefits? Amendments are needed to existing laws. For example, The Natural Resources (Benefit Sharing) Act 2014 establishes a system of benefit sharing between the parties and government, and local communities.

We need to be careful to determine how revenues should be split between the central government, the sovereign wealth fund and citizens. We also need to think about the necessary institutional arrangements so that all revenues are accounted for.

How do we prioritise seabed mining as an area of major economic development? There’s a lot to learn from countries in the South Pacific in terms of how their laws address capacity-building, local content and local participation.

This is especially so for Papua New Guinea where the world’s first seabed mining venture will soon begin. I suggest that we go further, and develop our nation’s seabed mineral resources on a regional basis.

Apart from sharing in the direct economic benefits, opening up the industry to our EAC neighbours could address other shared concerns, such as youth unemployment, while enhancing the region’s skills base.

There could be opportunities for entrepreneurship; distribution services, education services, financial services, tourism and travel-related services as well as transport services.

This would also go well with the EAC Common Market Protocol, which provides for free movement and non-discrimination of workers among the EAC Partner States.

It is also in line with the UN Law of the Sea Convention, which encourages countries to cooperate in environmental conservation, marine scientific research, and on development and transfer of technology.

The mining plan presents a historic opportunity to develop a national industry, while enabling cooperation with other countries. It should outline an informed, transparent, accountable and sustainable approach of exploiting our submerged mineral wealth.

Dr Kimani is an assistant professor at Chandaria Business School, United States International University.