Deep-sea mining prospects in French Polynesia: Governance and the politics of time

Meur, Pierre‐Yves Le; Arndt, Nicholas; Christmann, Patrice; Géronimi, Vincent

doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2016.07.020

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…AUVs deployed with sonar systems for microbathymetric studies have shown how even small seafloor anthropogenic disturbances, on the scale of meters, can be delineated from heights of 10 s of meters in the water column [65]. Being able to gauge such disturbances over sizable areas with towed camera/acoustic systems cheaply and with a high degree of reproducibility provides cost effective opportunities for improving the monitoring requirements of regions of the deep sea seafloor, requirements which may be imposed in the future on deep sea mineral mining operators [66], [67], oil and gas exploitation endeavors or deep sea fishing activities [68], [69].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocean Floor Observation and Bathymetry System (OFOBS): A New Towed Camera/Sonar System for Deep-Sea Habitat Surveys

Purser

Marcon

Dreutter

et al. 2019

IEEE J. Oceanic Eng.

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Towed camera systems are commonly used to collect photo and video images of the deep seafloor for a wide variety of purposes, from pure exploratory research to the development of management plans. Ongoing technological developments are increasing the quantity and quality of data collected from the deep seafloor. Despite these improvements, the area of seafloor, which towed systems can survey, optically remains limited by the rapid attenuation of visible wavelengths within water. We present an overview of a new towed camera platform integrating additional acoustical devices: the ocean floor observation and bathymetry system (OFOBS). The towed system maintains continuous direct communication via fiber optic cable with a support vessel, operational at depths up to 6000 m. In addition to collecting seafloor photo and video data, OFOBS gathers sidescan data over a 100-m swath width. OFOBS functionality is further augmented by a forward looking sonar, used to aid in hazard avoidance and real-time course correction. Data collected during the first field deployments of OFOBS, at a range of seamounts on the Langseth Ridge/Gakkel Ridge intersection (86°N , 61°E) in the high Arctic in September 2016, are presented to demonstrate the functionality of the system. Collected from a location with near continuous ice cover, this explanatory data set highlights the advantages of the system for deep-sea survey work in environments currently difficult to access for the majority of subsurface research platforms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocean Floor Observation and Bathymetry System (OFOBS): A New Towed Camera/Sonar System for Deep-Sea Habitat Surveys

Purser

Marcon

Dreutter

et al. 2019

IEEE J. Oceanic Eng.

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“…French Pacific territories' responses to this ‘scramble for the Pacific’ (Fache et al 2021) are diverse, as shown by Marlène Dégremont in her contribution. Deep sea mining is viewed as a potential economic alternative in French Polynesia (Le Meur et al 2018) whereas it crystallizes growing tensions between customary and political authorities and the French state in Wallis and Futuna and it seems to be ‘ignored’ by the Coral Sea Natural Park in New Caledonia (Le Meur and Muni Toke 2021). The interplay between French sovereignty, Polynesian claims and environmental NGOs strategies results in changing configurations polarized by a tension between large‐scale Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) as new enclosures or forms of blue grabbing (Bennett and Govan 2015; Cornier and Leblic 2016) and large‐scale Marine Managed Areas (MMA) as exemplified in French Polynesia.…”

Section: Postcolonial Turnsmentioning

confidence: 99%

France and Oceanian Sovereignties

Meur

Mawyer

2022

Oceania

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The character of sovereignty in its constitution, expression, and experience across Pacific Islands has come into renewed focus over recent years. Decades after the onset of the post‐war period of decolonization and independence, non‐self governing French territories in Oceania are seeing communities chart and navigate new relationships with sovereignty conceptions and practices across local, regional, and global scales. These navigations often evidence striking articulations of authority, rights, governance, and law rooted in enduring cultural values of Pacific Islander communities. Drawing nuanced attention to divergent historical and contemporary articulations of sovereignties in French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, and Vanuatu, the seven articles gathered here collectively highlight the comparabilities, diversities, and trajectories in how sovereignties are being negotiated and contested by different communities within France entangled Oceania. This collection brings into visibility the complicated field of actors maintaining, transforming, or seeking to summon, establish or disestablish forms of sovereignty on the ground in everyday Oceanian worlds.

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“…Such formations are based on upping levels of scientific knowledge production, data monitoring and political transparencyin other words all sorts of political technology -which can be read as attempts to 'secure the volume' (Elden 2013) in the deep sea. One example of this is in French Polynesia where 'the complex perimeter of proposed DSM activities and impacts' are defined by a 'politics of time -anticipation, monitoring, adaptability, sustainability -and the politics of space' (Le Meur et al 2016). In short, the demands on effective legal governance for DSM are growing fast but they will be shaped by the spatio-temporalities of the human and non-human, by the biopolitical and the geopolitical.…”

Section: Legislating For Dsm's Human Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…9 Beyond the Solwara 1 project in PNG which is focused on SMS deposits, a series of explorations are taking place globally that target all types of deposit outlined in an earlier section. What this vast range of DSM activity has is common is an engagement with both a politics of space and a politics of time (Kirsch 2014;Le Meur et al 2016). Yet different temporalities are evident.…”

Section: Dsm At the Threshold: Politics And The Spatio-temporalities mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This includes sometimes decades-long processes of pre-operational work such as that just described but also the post-operational work after extraction has taken place (Le Meur et al 2016). Extraction might take place in a relative moment at the deep-sea bed, but the longer-term impacts on earth systems, the dispersal of sediment plumes into the ocean's water, and the effects on understudied ecosystems are likely to significantly amplify current resistance to DSM from campaigners and be the key to a politics of contention in the future.…”

Section: Dsm At the Threshold: Politics And The Spatio-temporalities mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extraction in Four Dimensions: Time, Space and the Emerging Geo(-)politics of Deep-Sea Mining

Childs

2018

Geopolitics

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Despite the truism that less is known about the deep-sea than outer space, deep-sea mining (DSM) is being promoted as the next frontier of resource extraction. In 2019, Nautilus Minerals hopes to become the world's first company to mine the deep seabed in the waters off Papua New Guinea (PNG). DSM thus stands at the threshold of becoming a matter of politics; it has provoked a wide range of geopolitical imaginaries variously relating to 'resource security' and 'progress', on the one hand, and environmental disaster and precaution on the other. However, these accounts do little to address the specific 'nature' of the deep-sea, seabed and their extreme location and materialities, and are instead framed by classic geopolitical concerns with interstate relations. Against this background and illustrated by examples centred on PNG, this paper argues that future engagements with the geopolitics of DSM are more accurately conceptualised by an engagement with time as well as three dimensional space. This includes the multiple spatial and temporal registers through which both the geology and ecologies of seabed and seawater operate. By highlighting the importance of resource temporalities, it suggests that the geopolitics of both DSM and extraction in extreme places more generally is not only spatially complex, it is also a matter of time.

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Deep-sea mining prospects in French Polynesia: Governance and the politics of time

Cited by 20 publications

References 41 publications

Ocean Floor Observation and Bathymetry System (OFOBS): A New Towed Camera/Sonar System for Deep-Sea Habitat Surveys

Ocean Floor Observation and Bathymetry System (OFOBS): A New Towed Camera/Sonar System for Deep-Sea Habitat Surveys

France and Oceanian Sovereignties

Extraction in Four Dimensions: Time, Space and the Emerging Geo(-)politics of Deep-Sea Mining

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