Nov. 26, 2025

How Deep Sea Mining Could Break the Ocean’s Most Important Wildlife Highways

How Deep Sea Mining could permanently disrupt the ocean’s most important animal routes, and most people have never thought about it. This episode asks the critical question: what happens when mining operations collide with species that rely on vast migratory pathways to survive? We break down the science in a way that makes the stakes impossible to ignore, from whale communication and sea turtle navigation to seabird feeding routes and shark migrations.

Whales: Our guest, Dr. Andrew Thaler, explains how mining doesn’t just damage the seafloor. It sends noise, light, sediment, and pollution across the entire water column. The most surprising takeaway is that animals living near the surface could suffer major impacts from mining occurring thousands of meters below them, simply because their survival depends on calm, uninterrupted travel corridors. It turns the deep sea into a threat zone rather than a sanctuary.

Ocean conservation: This conversation exposes a major gap in global mining policy. The focus is always the seabed, but the species most at risk never go anywhere near it. That realization leads to a powerful conclusion: when we talk about protecting the ocean, we can’t just talk about the bottom. We have to protect everything that connects it from top to bottom.

Listen now to understand the full story.

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Transcript

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Deep sea mining could have long lasting

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effects on the bottom of the ocean.

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But did you ever consider what effects or

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consequences it might have for some

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species in the ocean?

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Like whales, sea turtles,

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seabirds, sharks and rays?

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A lot of people haven't really thought

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about it, including myself,

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until I talked to my friend Dr. Andrew

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Thaler, who just finished an assessment,

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a gap assessment on how deep sea mining

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could affect these types of species.

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Cetaceans, whales, bottlenose dolphins,

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or any kind of beaked whale,

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or we're looking at sea turtles, or we're

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looking at sea birds,

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or we're looking at sharks and skates and

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rays and all these types of animals,

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because we think of them at the top of

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the ocean and deep sea

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mining is in the deep sea.

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So how can they be affected? We're going

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to talk a bunch about the

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logistics of actually what

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mining is, how animals in the water

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column are going to be

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affected, aka through noise,

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what it looks like on the surface, how

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many ships are going to

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be there at full scale

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plant or full scale project where they're

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actually deep sea

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mining in the open ocean.

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We're going to talk all about that on

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today's episode of the How

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to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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It's a great one. You're not going to

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want to miss it if you're

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interested in deep sea mining,

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its effect on the ocean. So let's start

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the show. Hey, everybody,

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welcome back to another exciting

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episode of the How to Protect the Ocean

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podcast. I'm your host,

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Andrew Lewin, a marine biologist

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and science communicator here to tell you

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what's happening with the

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ocean, how you can speak up

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for the ocean and what you can do to live

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for a better ocean by

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taking action. Say we're going

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to be talking about the deep sea because

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I have a very, very special

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guest, a recurring special

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guest, Dr. Andrew Thaler, who's here to

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talk about a gap assessment,

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a study that he just completed

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for the convention of migratory species.

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We're going to talk about

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that study, what he found,

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and we're really going to get into the

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logistics of what a deep sea mining

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operation would look

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like from top to bottom, literally from

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the surface down to the deep

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sea. We're going to talk about

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the different types of deep sea mining

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and how that could affect

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the ocean bottom and how that

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could affect the water column and all

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that wonderful stuff. So

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we're going to talk about that.

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But you know, there's a lot of mystery

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around deep sea mining and

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the effects that it can happen

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because we just haven't studied it

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completely where we really

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understand the effects, especially

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since it hasn't really been done at full

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scale. So you know, we don't want to

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reach that point and be

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like, hey, you know what we should have

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done is made regulations to that. So

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there's a lot of mystery

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around that, a lot of science that has to

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be done around that. You

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know what also there needs to be

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done? There needs to be done a lot of

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science and a lot of other habitats in

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the ocean, including

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seagrasses. Seagrasses, it has a special

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place in my heart. I almost

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did a PhD on seagrasses. I've

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been always following seagrasses. I've

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always been interested in

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the habitat we call seagrasses,

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because it's productive. It's biodiverse.

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It's an important habitat, coastal

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habitat for the ocean

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and for its species for other habitats,

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such as mangroves and such as

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coral reefs and other places.

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It's something that we need to talk about

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that we don't talk about

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enough. So what I want to do is

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I want to start and launch a podcast

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called the Seagrass Effect.

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Because this podcast, how to

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protect the ocean is about people. It's

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to help you understand more

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of what's happening with the

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ocean. I want to crowdfund this podcast

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because it takes money to do

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it. It takes time. I want to

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do this. I love doing this. I love

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talking about seagrasses, but I want to

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share seagrass science,

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research, conservation and restoration

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projects around the world,

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not only to bring the research

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community, the conservation and

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restoration community together about

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seagrasses, but I also

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want to help restore seagrasses. So with

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this crowdfunding, not only

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will we share the information

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on seagrasses, but we're going to help

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restore seagrass habitats around the

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world. And I can't wait to do that.

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But I need your help. I need you to help

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crowdfund this. I need your donations if

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you're willing to do this.

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If you see the same thing I see around

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seagrasses, go to speakupforblue.com

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forward slash seagrass to

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be able to donate today.

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It's speakupforblue.com forward slash

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seagrass. I want to thank the partners

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and the crowdfunding platform

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Balian for helping us balian.org. That's

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where you're going to find the project,

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but go to speakupforblue.com forward

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slash seagrass goes

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right to my funding page.

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Find more information on the podcast. I

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can't wait. I'd love to hear what you

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think about that. I'm looking to launch

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that as soon as possible.

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All right, let's get back into the show.

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Andrew emailed me a couple of days ago

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and said, "Hey, you ready to podcast?"

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And I'm like, "Absolutely. I'm always

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ready to podcast." I knew there was a

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bunch of stuff coming

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out with Deepsea Mining.

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He's done a study on the gap analysis,

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looking at where the gaps are for

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migratory species that could

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be affected by Deepsea Mining.

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And I was like, "How is that going to

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happen? How are they going to be

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affected?" And he broke it down for me

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and it was wonderful.

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So without further ado, I want you to

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listen to this entire interview with Dr.

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Andrew Thaler talking about the effects

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of Deepsea Mining on migratory species

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like cetaceans, which are whales,

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seabirds, sea turtles, sharks, rays,

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skates, all these animals that have a profound effect on the deepsea mining.

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Absolutely I am. I am so excited for this

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one. I love it. This is going to be

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definitely an interesting episode because

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when we talk about deepsea mining, we're

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going to talk about

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how to protect the ocean.

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There are others northern

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you did on behalf of,

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you're gonna talk about

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who it's on behalf of and so forth.

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And I'm like, oh, this

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is an interesting angle.

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I've got a lot of

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questions that we're gonna ask

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just in terms of how this came to be

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and what those results are

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and what we're gonna do

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in the future about this

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and some of the

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implications that can have.

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So it's gonna be really

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interesting to talk about.

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But before we do, why

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don't you just remind us

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of who you are and what you do?

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Sure thing, I am Dr. Andrew Thaler.

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I am a deep sea ecologist,

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a conservation technologist,

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and an ocean educator.

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And I work on issues

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surrounding how humans use

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and misuse technology

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to explore and exploit

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the deepest places in the world.

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Ah, awesome. Love to hear that.

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(laughs) You know, what's interesting

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too is let's just kind of go,

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we've been on the podcast

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multiple times, I think.

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We've done a few.

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Yeah, we've done a few,

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especially on deep sea mining.

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When we first had you on or

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when you were on at one point,

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we talked about your

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history with deep sea mining,

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doing your deep sea

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ecology PhD on deep sea mining.

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And you've been in charge of

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the Deep Sea Mining Magazine.

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You've gone to all of

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the international sea,

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well not all, but you've

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been to the national sea bank.

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Not all of them,

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they've been there for awhile.

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Right, right. But

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you've been following them

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and you've been giving

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me information as well as,

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you know, thousands of

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other people who read

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the Southern Fried Science

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who follow you on your Patreon.

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And maybe you've even mentioned it when

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some of your D&D games

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with some of the local kids, when you

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talk about forestry,

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but you've done a lot

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and you've been on here

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and you are an expert in this.

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And I'm glad to have

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you on to talk about this.

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We've seen deep sea mining

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continue to be in the news,

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somewhat underlining the news where

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people like mention it

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and you can almost see

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people roll their eyes like,

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oh yeah, we got to

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worry about that. Okay.

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And then some people are like, well, how

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is it going to really affect me?

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Like, is it really that big of a deal?

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And then I go into a whole tirade.

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I'm like, I've got

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podcasts for you to listen to.

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Just bear with me.

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But, you know, it's always an

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interesting kind of situation.

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We've talked about the

263
01:07:28,333 --> 01:07:30,416
different types of deep sea mining

264
01:07:31,083 --> 01:07:33,125
and where they could mine from.

265
01:07:33,125 --> 01:07:34,291
We've talked about some of the areas.

266
01:07:34,291 --> 01:07:35,541
We talked about some of the gaps.

267
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:37,166
Now today we're going to be talking about

268
01:07:37,166 --> 01:07:38,208
some of the gaps in knowledge,

269
01:07:38,541 --> 01:07:39,500
but with migratory

270
01:07:39,500 --> 01:07:40,750
species and how deep sea mining

271
01:07:40,916 --> 01:07:42,625
could affect migratory species.

272
01:07:43,250 --> 01:07:45,541
Can we start from the beginning of where

273
01:07:45,541 --> 01:07:48,083
the idea came from and why

274
01:07:48,083 --> 01:07:50,208
and then how you got involved in it?

275
01:07:50,791 --> 01:07:51,291
Absolutely.

276
01:07:51,833 --> 01:07:53,791
And kind of before we get into that,

277
01:07:53,791 --> 01:07:54,458
I just want to ask you a

278
01:07:54,458 --> 01:07:55,375
very important question.

279
01:07:56,416 --> 01:07:58,708
How much do you know about eels?

280
01:08:00,583 --> 01:08:00,875
Eels.

281
01:08:01,583 --> 01:08:03,291
Well, I know they migrate.

282
01:08:04,291 --> 01:08:06,750
They go, there's two

283
01:08:06,750 --> 01:08:08,833
eels species, I believe,

284
01:08:08,833 --> 01:08:09,791
the European and then the American eel.

285
01:08:10,708 --> 01:08:12,458
We actually get some eels

286
01:08:12,458 --> 01:08:15,041
up here in the Great Lakes.

287
01:08:15,750 --> 01:08:17,500
And they kind of congregate, both species

288
01:08:17,500 --> 01:08:19,458
congregate in the Gulf

289
01:08:19,458 --> 01:08:20,416
of Mexico, I believe,

290
01:08:20,416 --> 01:08:22,166
or Sargasso Sea kind of area.

291
01:08:22,458 --> 01:08:23,166
So I got the main.

292
01:08:23,333 --> 01:08:24,083
Yeah.

293
01:08:24,083 --> 01:08:26,833
And then they go back up to one goes up

294
01:08:26,833 --> 01:08:28,083
to Northern Europe and then

295
01:08:28,083 --> 01:08:29,958
the other one comes over here.

296
01:08:30,750 --> 01:08:30,958
Exactly.

297
01:08:31,041 --> 01:08:32,625
So I'm a deep sea ecologist.

298
01:08:32,875 --> 01:08:33,625
I'm a benthic man.

299
01:08:34,208 --> 01:08:35,250
Most of my life has been

300
01:08:35,250 --> 01:08:36,916
spent looking at snails.

301
01:08:37,416 --> 01:08:37,625
Right.

302
01:08:38,041 --> 01:08:38,250
Right.

303
01:08:38,708 --> 01:08:40,875
You know, you could live an entire life

304
01:08:40,875 --> 01:08:42,625
and only look at snails and be satisfied.

305
01:08:44,583 --> 01:08:49,583
But I was contracted by the

306
01:08:49,583 --> 01:08:50,666
Convention on Migratory Species,

307
01:08:50,708 --> 01:08:53,333
which is a UN organization that is tasked

308
01:08:53,333 --> 01:08:57,041
with managing specific kinds of wildlife

309
01:08:57,041 --> 01:08:58,208
that travel across borders.

310
01:08:58,500 --> 01:08:59,500
So highly migratory species

311
01:08:59,500 --> 01:09:01,458
that move between borders.

312
01:09:01,666 --> 01:09:02,875
The ones that, you know, if you're going

313
01:09:02,875 --> 01:09:03,625
to manage them, they have

314
01:09:03,625 --> 01:09:04,500
to be managed collectively.

315
01:09:04,708 --> 01:09:05,708
You can't manage them country by country.

316
01:09:05,708 --> 01:09:08,750
One of those animals is, of course, the

317
01:09:08,750 --> 01:09:11,083
common eel or European eel.

318
01:09:12,375 --> 01:09:15,833
And the European eel as an adult, it sets

319
01:09:15,833 --> 01:09:18,166
sail from the coasts of

320
01:09:18,166 --> 01:09:20,041
Europe, crosses the Atlantic.

321
01:09:21,083 --> 01:09:24,125
It reproduces in the Sargasso Sea, spawns

322
01:09:24,125 --> 01:09:25,250
in the Sargasso Sea,

323
01:09:25,250 --> 01:09:26,708
dies in the Sargasso Sea.

324
01:09:26,708 --> 01:09:30,625
And then it's offspring, which are in the

325
01:09:30,625 --> 01:09:32,500
form of these tiny little almost

326
01:09:32,500 --> 01:09:33,916
transparent glass eels,

327
01:09:34,375 --> 01:09:36,625
migrates back across the Atlantic Ocean,

328
01:09:37,041 --> 01:09:39,791
settles again in Europe, grows up, grows

329
01:09:39,791 --> 01:09:41,583
big, five to 25 years

330
01:09:41,583 --> 01:09:43,000
later repeats that process.

331
01:09:43,500 --> 01:09:45,291
The migration across the Atlantic can

332
01:09:45,291 --> 01:09:47,291
take 18 months to two or three years.

333
01:09:47,708 --> 01:09:49,208
So it's a very long process.

334
01:09:49,875 --> 01:09:52,833
And one of the things that happens when

335
01:09:52,833 --> 01:09:54,375
you migrate across the Atlantic is you

336
01:09:54,375 --> 01:09:55,708
migrate across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

337
01:09:56,708 --> 01:09:58,625
And the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, as many of

338
01:09:58,625 --> 01:10:00,000
you listeners know, and we've talked

339
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:02,541
about, is a site of tremendous

340
01:10:02,541 --> 01:10:05,000
hydrothermal activity and a place where

341
01:10:05,000 --> 01:10:07,000
multiple mining companies are looking at

342
01:10:07,000 --> 01:10:08,208
exploiting polymetallic

343
01:10:08,208 --> 01:10:09,541
sulfides on the seafloor.

344
01:10:10,208 --> 01:10:11,791
So the International Seabed Authority,

345
01:10:11,791 --> 01:10:14,458
this organization that oversees mining in

346
01:10:14,458 --> 01:10:18,000
the high seas, is issuing lease blocks in

347
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:20,375
areas outside of any nation's boundaries

348
01:10:20,375 --> 01:10:21,541
currently just for

349
01:10:21,541 --> 01:10:22,708
exploration, not for exploitation.

350
01:10:22,750 --> 01:10:26,541
And no one's mining anything yet. And one

351
01:10:26,541 --> 01:10:28,083
of the things that the conventional

352
01:10:28,083 --> 01:10:30,500
migratory species wants to know is, you

353
01:10:30,500 --> 01:10:32,958
know, a lot of the environmental work

354
01:10:32,958 --> 01:10:34,583
that's been done around deep sea mining,

355
01:10:35,041 --> 01:10:36,500
all of the environmental baseline work

356
01:10:36,500 --> 01:10:38,083
today that I've done around deep sea

357
01:10:38,083 --> 01:10:38,708
mining is focused on the seafloor.

358
01:10:38,750 --> 01:10:41,791
Looking at what impacts mining is going

359
01:10:41,791 --> 01:10:43,666
to have on the benthic communities,

360
01:10:44,291 --> 01:10:47,416
looking at impacts of the mining plume on

361
01:10:47,416 --> 01:10:48,333
mid-water communities.

362
01:10:49,125 --> 01:10:50,500
But one of the things that hasn't really

363
01:10:50,500 --> 01:10:54,000
been looked at in a lot with a lot of

364
01:10:54,000 --> 01:10:56,958
effort has been the big animals, the

365
01:10:56,958 --> 01:10:58,708
migratory species that are moving through

366
01:10:58,708 --> 01:11:01,208
these areas that are really connected to

367
01:11:01,208 --> 01:11:03,375
the global ocean that are traveling

368
01:11:03,375 --> 01:11:06,500
around the world as part of their

369
01:11:06,500 --> 01:11:08,708
migration, as part of their feeding as part of their migration.

370
01:11:08,708 --> 01:11:11,041
As part of their reproduction and

371
01:11:11,041 --> 01:11:13,750
foraging behavior. And we'll encounter

372
01:11:13,750 --> 01:11:15,166
these mining sites throughout their

373
01:11:15,166 --> 01:11:19,291
lives. So a weird quirky thing that

374
01:11:19,291 --> 01:11:21,375
happened in the process of this is, you

375
01:11:21,375 --> 01:11:23,250
know, I started with fish because I

376
01:11:23,250 --> 01:11:25,041
thought, OK, you know, fish are probably

377
01:11:25,041 --> 01:11:27,583
the thing I'm the least familiar with

378
01:11:27,583 --> 01:11:28,708
because I do benthic stuff.

379
01:11:28,750 --> 01:11:30,958
I had just come off of some work with the

380
01:11:30,958 --> 01:11:32,916
International Whaling Commission, so I

381
01:11:32,916 --> 01:11:34,250
knew quite a bit about what was going on

382
01:11:34,250 --> 01:11:36,541
with marine mammals. Fish and seabirds

383
01:11:36,541 --> 01:11:38,125
were going to be the kind of the big

384
01:11:38,125 --> 01:11:38,708
heavy lift ones for me.

385
01:11:38,750 --> 01:11:42,166
I discovered that, you know, the

386
01:11:42,166 --> 01:11:44,166
conventional migratory species doesn't

387
01:11:44,166 --> 01:11:47,750
oversee a lot of bony fish because many

388
01:11:47,750 --> 01:11:49,083
of the commercially important ones are

389
01:11:49,083 --> 01:11:50,500
covered under other treaties.

390
01:11:51,666 --> 01:11:53,125
And most of the ones that the convention

391
01:11:53,125 --> 01:11:56,125
covers are ones that we usually think of

392
01:11:56,125 --> 01:11:58,208
as anadromous or riverine fish. So they

393
01:11:58,208 --> 01:11:59,666
have a lot of sturgeons involved and

394
01:11:59,666 --> 01:12:02,041
sturgeons aren't particularly at risk of

395
01:12:02,041 --> 01:12:02,833
going offshore and

396
01:12:02,833 --> 01:12:03,708
running into mining sites.

397
01:12:03,750 --> 01:12:07,000
But they do cover European eels and

398
01:12:07,000 --> 01:12:11,458
European eels extract their migration

399
01:12:11,458 --> 01:12:13,833
patterns as far as we know. And they do

400
01:12:13,833 --> 01:12:16,000
migrate right over some of these lease

401
01:12:16,000 --> 01:12:17,541
blocks that have already been issued and

402
01:12:17,541 --> 01:12:18,500
currently being explored.

403
01:12:19,083 --> 01:12:21,041
So one of the first things that came out

404
01:12:21,041 --> 01:12:26,000
of this study was, oh, I have I have been

405
01:12:26,000 --> 01:12:28,125
working in deep sea mining since 2008. It

406
01:12:28,125 --> 01:12:30,333
had never even occurred to me that eels

407
01:12:30,333 --> 01:12:32,541
might be an issue for impact studies. And

408
01:12:32,541 --> 01:12:34,500
I'm like, you know, eels are pretty

409
01:12:34,500 --> 01:12:35,708
important to the European economy.

410
01:12:35,750 --> 01:12:40,583
They're incredibly crucial fishery.

411
01:12:40,791 --> 01:12:42,625
They're fishery that is under tremendous

412
01:12:42,625 --> 01:12:45,000
threat. And now perhaps there will be a

413
01:12:45,000 --> 01:12:46,833
new threat to them if mining on the mid

414
01:12:46,833 --> 01:12:48,708
Atlantic Ridge gets underway.

415
01:12:48,750 --> 01:12:51,375
So that's kind of the ages of this

416
01:12:51,375 --> 01:12:53,791
project is, you know, to look at the

417
01:12:53,791 --> 01:12:56,416
migratory species, to take the known

418
01:12:56,416 --> 01:12:59,000
ranges and the known routes of migratory

419
01:12:59,000 --> 01:13:00,541
species that we have tracked in the past

420
01:13:00,541 --> 01:13:04,166
to see where they interact with known and

421
01:13:04,166 --> 01:13:06,708
proposed deep sea mining sites and to

422
01:13:06,708 --> 01:13:09,208
figure out what the potential impacts to

423
01:13:09,208 --> 01:13:09,708
these animals will be.

424
01:13:09,750 --> 01:13:12,875
So we looked at whales, whales and

425
01:13:12,875 --> 01:13:15,458
dolphins, cetaceans. We looked at bony

426
01:13:15,458 --> 01:13:17,333
fish, which ended up just being European

427
01:13:17,333 --> 01:13:18,916
eels. And I ended up spending a lot of

428
01:13:18,916 --> 01:13:19,791
time on European eels

429
01:13:19,791 --> 01:13:21,500
because eels are really cool.

430
01:13:22,625 --> 01:13:25,208
We looked at sharks, skates and rays, and

431
01:13:25,208 --> 01:13:26,541
they have some very interesting

432
01:13:26,541 --> 01:13:30,125
interactions with mining sites. We looked

433
01:13:30,125 --> 01:13:32,166
at marine reptiles, which is mostly

434
01:13:32,166 --> 01:13:33,333
turtles, though there are some other

435
01:13:33,333 --> 01:13:34,500
reptiles that are a little bit more

436
01:13:34,500 --> 01:13:36,541
coastal and aren't going to see much

437
01:13:36,541 --> 01:13:36,708
impact from deep sea mining.

438
01:13:36,750 --> 01:13:39,833
And we looked at seabirds to see what

439
01:13:39,833 --> 01:13:41,375
kinds of seabirds would be interacting

440
01:13:41,375 --> 01:13:42,958
with these potential mining sites.

441
01:13:44,500 --> 01:13:46,291
So when we talk about DC mine, like you

442
01:13:46,291 --> 01:13:49,208
mentioned it before, you know, we think

443
01:13:49,208 --> 01:13:51,291
about the bottom of the ocean. So it was

444
01:13:51,291 --> 01:13:53,708
a lot of times we're thinking to 3000

445
01:13:53,708 --> 01:13:57,708
meters deep, maybe more in certain spots,

446
01:13:58,958 --> 01:14:00,500
maybe a little bit less to but we're

447
01:14:00,500 --> 01:14:02,250
never really thinking about the upper

448
01:14:02,250 --> 01:14:02,708
parts of the water column.

449
01:14:02,750 --> 01:14:05,625
You know, we're a lot of these species we

450
01:14:05,625 --> 01:14:06,875
think, you know, this is where we think

451
01:14:06,875 --> 01:14:08,875
these species are marine mammals, they

452
01:14:08,875 --> 01:14:10,791
have to breathe. So they come to the

453
01:14:10,791 --> 01:14:12,333
surface sea turtles have to breathe. They

454
01:14:12,333 --> 01:14:14,125
come to the surface sharks.

455
01:14:14,125 --> 01:14:16,041
I mean, we know certain sharks will stay

456
01:14:16,041 --> 01:14:18,625
up, you know, up top, you know, in the

457
01:14:18,625 --> 01:14:20,500
shallows and then others will be deep sea

458
01:14:20,500 --> 01:14:21,458
sharks or that some will

459
01:14:21,458 --> 01:14:22,708
go into the deeper waters.

460
01:14:23,708 --> 01:14:25,625
Sea seabirds, while they fly. So they're,

461
01:14:25,625 --> 01:14:27,000
you know, if they're going to eat, you

462
01:14:27,000 --> 01:14:28,125
know, they're probably going to stay

463
01:14:28,125 --> 01:14:29,000
pretty close to the

464
01:14:29,000 --> 01:14:30,416
to the to the surface.

465
01:14:30,416 --> 01:14:33,291
So when we, you know, I'm sure there are

466
01:14:33,291 --> 01:14:34,958
some people who are listening to this

467
01:14:34,958 --> 01:14:36,416
being like, you know, why are we

468
01:14:36,416 --> 01:14:38,333
concerned with the species that are

469
01:14:38,333 --> 01:14:40,500
staying so high up? Is that

470
01:14:40,500 --> 01:14:42,666
an impact for deep sea mining?

471
01:14:42,875 --> 01:14:45,916
And as when you answer that, can you also

472
01:14:45,916 --> 01:14:48,333
talk just a bit about what the process is

473
01:14:48,333 --> 01:14:51,166
going to look like when say an operation

474
01:14:51,166 --> 01:14:53,166
like deep sea mining happens? It's not

475
01:14:53,166 --> 01:14:55,708
drilling per se. It's taking stuff off

476
01:14:55,708 --> 01:14:57,916
the surface. But my understanding is

477
01:14:57,916 --> 01:14:58,750
there's like there may

478
01:14:58,750 --> 01:14:59,708
there might be a sediment plume.

479
01:14:59,750 --> 01:15:02,208
So I can see like benthic stuff getting

480
01:15:02,208 --> 01:15:05,750
obviously disturbed. You talk about like,

481
01:15:05,750 --> 01:15:07,541
where in the water column are we looking

482
01:15:07,541 --> 01:15:09,458
at? Are we predicting these disturbance

483
01:15:09,458 --> 01:15:10,916
to happen? How far up?

484
01:15:10,916 --> 01:15:11,708
How far down so forth?

485
01:15:11,750 --> 01:15:14,333
Yeah, so there are there are three major

486
01:15:14,333 --> 01:15:16,750
or deposits that are being targeted. The

487
01:15:16,750 --> 01:15:18,375
deepest are what we call polymetallic

488
01:15:18,375 --> 01:15:20,333
nodules, and they occur at about 6000

489
01:15:20,333 --> 01:15:22,916
meters depth. And these are the little

490
01:15:22,916 --> 01:15:24,500
cobblestones that you'll see on the sea

491
01:15:24,500 --> 01:15:27,000
floor, are being targeted because they

492
01:15:27,000 --> 01:15:30,125
are fairly abundant in cobalt and copper

493
01:15:30,125 --> 01:15:31,500
and nickel, depending on

494
01:15:31,500 --> 01:15:32,708
where in the world that forming.

495
01:15:32,708 --> 01:15:37,000
You also get cobalt rich ferromanganese

496
01:15:37,000 --> 01:15:39,500
crusts. And these are crusts that form on

497
01:15:39,500 --> 01:15:41,541
the sides of sea mounts. And so they can

498
01:15:41,541 --> 01:15:45,041
be as shallow as eight to 1000 meters, or

499
01:15:45,041 --> 01:15:46,583
they can be tremendously deep if you have

500
01:15:46,583 --> 01:15:48,916
very deep sea mounts. And then the third

501
01:15:48,916 --> 01:15:50,708
size of the sea mounts are not the top, they're on the sides.

502
01:15:50,750 --> 01:15:53,791
They're kind of forming all around the

503
01:15:53,791 --> 01:15:55,833
sea mount. Okay, they kind of become the

504
01:15:55,833 --> 01:15:58,166
hard substrate of the sea mount. Gotcha.

505
01:15:59,541 --> 01:16:01,416
And then you have sea floor massive

506
01:16:01,416 --> 01:16:04,333
sulfides or in ecology speak, deep sea

507
01:16:04,333 --> 01:16:06,208
hydrothermal vents, and they occur

508
01:16:06,208 --> 01:16:07,916
anywhere from 1000

509
01:16:07,916 --> 01:16:08,708
meters to 6000 meters deep.

510
01:16:08,750 --> 01:16:12,041
And these are those kind of lush vibrant

511
01:16:12,041 --> 01:16:13,958
communities of chemosynthetic organisms

512
01:16:13,958 --> 01:16:16,291
that are growing around like these active

513
01:16:16,291 --> 01:16:17,916
event plumes that are belching black

514
01:16:17,916 --> 01:16:20,625
smoke into the water column. And they're

515
01:16:20,625 --> 01:16:21,791
interesting because they're not

516
01:16:21,791 --> 01:16:23,833
particularly targeted for critical

517
01:16:23,833 --> 01:16:26,458
minerals. So with cobalt crusts and with

518
01:16:26,458 --> 01:16:28,125
nodules, people are talking about, oh,

519
01:16:28,125 --> 01:16:28,708
it's, you know, it's critical minerals. It's national security.

520
01:16:29,708 --> 01:16:32,625
With hydrothermal vents, it's gold,

521
01:16:32,916 --> 01:16:35,041
mostly it's gold, it's silver, there's

522
01:16:35,041 --> 01:16:37,000
copper as well. When you think of metals

523
01:16:37,000 --> 01:16:39,041
that occur in veins, it's like a vein of

524
01:16:39,041 --> 01:16:42,500
gold, a vein of copper, those veins even

525
01:16:42,500 --> 01:16:43,708
on land are ancient

526
01:16:43,708 --> 01:16:45,041
hydrothermal vents stock works.

527
01:16:46,333 --> 01:16:47,791
And there are some cool places where if

528
01:16:47,791 --> 01:16:49,333
you go to Cyprus and look at the gold

529
01:16:49,333 --> 01:16:51,666
mines in Cyprus, you can find fossil tube

530
01:16:51,666 --> 01:16:53,666
worms from 10 million year old 100

531
01:16:53,666 --> 01:16:54,708
million year old hydrothermal vents. Wow.

532
01:16:55,708 --> 01:16:59,458
So functionally speaking, up until the

533
01:16:59,458 --> 01:17:03,541
last half century, every gold mine and

534
01:17:03,541 --> 01:17:05,041
every copper mine is likely

535
01:17:05,041 --> 01:17:06,458
an ancient hydrothermal that

536
01:17:07,958 --> 01:17:08,250
that's insane.

537
01:17:09,208 --> 01:17:11,791
But the process is different depending on

538
01:17:11,791 --> 01:17:14,000
your body you're looking at. So in the

539
01:17:14,000 --> 01:17:17,083
cobalt, in the cobalt rich crusts and the

540
01:17:17,083 --> 01:17:19,500
seafloor massive sulfides, they're using

541
01:17:19,500 --> 01:17:21,375
cutting machines that will

542
01:17:21,375 --> 01:17:23,416
grind down the topology there.

543
01:17:23,708 --> 01:17:24,958
Both of them are three dimensional

544
01:17:24,958 --> 01:17:26,875
structures. You have to grind down the

545
01:17:26,875 --> 01:17:28,625
topology to get the ore out and that ore

546
01:17:28,625 --> 01:17:30,791
is pumped to the surface as

547
01:17:30,791 --> 01:17:31,708
it's pumped to the surface.

548
01:17:31,708 --> 01:17:32,166
So that's the process. It has to be

549
01:17:32,166 --> 01:17:34,666
dewatered. And then there's a metal rich

550
01:17:34,666 --> 01:17:36,625
dewatering plume that is pumped back

551
01:17:36,625 --> 01:17:38,458
down, usually into the mid water

552
01:17:38,458 --> 01:17:40,541
depending on who's doing a proposal.

553
01:17:41,166 --> 01:17:44,291
With polymetallic nodules, it's not quite

554
01:17:44,291 --> 01:17:46,541
as violent in operation because nodules

555
01:17:46,541 --> 01:17:48,458
are just sitting on the sea floor. So

556
01:17:48,458 --> 01:17:49,833
they're being plucked from the sea floor

557
01:17:49,833 --> 01:17:52,666
either mechanically with like mechanical

558
01:17:52,666 --> 01:17:53,916
arms or like a collecting

559
01:17:53,916 --> 01:17:55,708
device or via vacuum pumps.

560
01:17:56,708 --> 01:17:59,750
And then the nodules themselves are

561
01:17:59,750 --> 01:18:02,041
pumped to the surface, dewatered,

562
01:18:02,041 --> 01:18:03,750
dewatered plume returned. There's a

563
01:18:03,750 --> 01:18:05,416
couple other different proposals that

564
01:18:05,416 --> 01:18:08,333
have slightly different processes.

565
01:18:09,375 --> 01:18:12,375
But for the most part, it is the pump the

566
01:18:12,375 --> 01:18:14,666
order of the surface, dewater it, release

567
01:18:14,666 --> 01:18:16,583
the dewater and plume in the mid water.

568
01:18:16,583 --> 01:18:18,708
So when we're talking about impacts to

569
01:18:18,708 --> 01:18:22,083
highly migratory species, there's a

570
01:18:22,083 --> 01:18:23,500
direct impacts to the animals themselves.

571
01:18:23,500 --> 01:18:24,750
There's also indirect impacts.

572
01:18:25,708 --> 01:18:26,791
One of the first things we looked at are

573
01:18:26,791 --> 01:18:28,750
what are kind of the compounding impacts,

574
01:18:28,750 --> 01:18:30,125
the way that these indirect impacts can

575
01:18:30,125 --> 01:18:32,166
compound on top of them. When you destroy

576
01:18:32,166 --> 01:18:33,708
a benthic environment, if that benthic

577
01:18:33,708 --> 01:18:35,500
environment is a source of food or

578
01:18:35,500 --> 01:18:37,416
habitat or structure for migratory

579
01:18:37,416 --> 01:18:38,750
species, then they lose

580
01:18:38,750 --> 01:18:39,708
access to that as well.

581
01:18:39,791 --> 01:18:43,791
So one of the most extreme cases we have

582
01:18:43,791 --> 01:18:46,000
is that in the Clarion-Clipperton zone,

583
01:18:46,000 --> 01:18:47,333
which is an area where they're mining

584
01:18:47,333 --> 01:18:51,416
polymetallic nodules and it's 6000 meters

585
01:18:51,416 --> 01:18:54,916
deep, they find gouges on the sea floor.

586
01:18:55,583 --> 01:18:58,583
And those gouges look an awful lot like

587
01:18:58,583 --> 01:19:00,625
the feeding scars produced by beak

588
01:19:00,625 --> 01:19:02,666
whales. So right now, the maximum

589
01:19:02,666 --> 01:19:03,750
recorded depth of a

590
01:19:03,750 --> 01:19:05,291
beaked whale is 3000 meters.

591
01:19:05,958 --> 01:19:08,541
Clarion-Clipperton zone 6000 meters deep.

592
01:19:09,458 --> 01:19:12,125
So if these gouges turn out to be feeding

593
01:19:12,125 --> 01:19:14,083
scars, that doubles the known diving

594
01:19:14,083 --> 01:19:16,208
depth of an as yet

595
01:19:16,208 --> 01:19:18,708
unknown species of beaked whale.

596
01:19:19,458 --> 01:19:20,708
And how would it be possible we know what

597
01:19:20,708 --> 01:19:22,375
the species is, but we don't know which

598
01:19:22,375 --> 01:19:23,750
species is doing it right now.

599
01:19:24,500 --> 01:19:25,875
How would they confirm

600
01:19:25,875 --> 01:19:26,958
that it is a beaked whale?

601
01:19:28,375 --> 01:19:28,708
You'd have to observe it.

602
01:19:28,750 --> 01:19:32,333
You'd have to see it happen. So it's not

603
01:19:32,333 --> 01:19:33,791
as if they can look at the gouges and

604
01:19:33,791 --> 01:19:36,083
like take some samples or whatever and

605
01:19:36,083 --> 01:19:38,208
like the gouges look very consistent with

606
01:19:38,208 --> 01:19:39,791
shallower beaked whale gouges.

607
01:19:40,208 --> 01:19:42,583
I think the researchers I know who work

608
01:19:42,583 --> 01:19:44,333
on them are very confident that it is a

609
01:19:44,333 --> 01:19:45,416
beaked whale feeding scar.

610
01:19:46,250 --> 01:19:47,875
That's crazy. But it hasn't been double

611
01:19:47,875 --> 01:19:50,250
double double their maximum diving depth.

612
01:19:50,250 --> 01:19:51,875
That would be incredible. And that I mean

613
01:19:51,875 --> 01:19:54,208
6000 meters is it's mind blowing for

614
01:19:54,208 --> 01:19:54,708
marine mammal to dive.

615
01:19:54,750 --> 01:19:58,083
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's like to hold

616
01:19:58,083 --> 01:19:59,958
their breath for that long. Like, yeah,

617
01:19:59,958 --> 01:20:01,375
that's gotta take hours to go down.

618
01:20:02,250 --> 01:20:04,416
They move pretty quick. I don't know

619
01:20:04,416 --> 01:20:07,666
exactly how long tanks but I think I

620
01:20:07,666 --> 01:20:09,875
don't have the number off hand. But it's

621
01:20:09,875 --> 01:20:11,791
either 200 minutes or 20 minutes for the

622
01:20:11,791 --> 01:20:13,875
3000 meter dive. I'm guessing probably

623
01:20:13,875 --> 01:20:16,250
closer to 300 but don't quote me on that

624
01:20:16,250 --> 01:20:16,708
as we report upon that.

625
01:20:16,750 --> 01:20:21,333
But it could be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

626
01:20:21,333 --> 01:20:23,125
but we can we can look it up later. I

627
01:20:23,125 --> 01:20:24,375
don't have that number off hand. Yeah,

628
01:20:24,375 --> 01:20:26,375
yeah. But yeah, that would be I mean,

629
01:20:26,375 --> 01:20:27,083
that would be an incredible

630
01:20:27,083 --> 01:20:29,083
accomplishment for marine mammal. You

631
01:20:29,083 --> 01:20:30,416
know, there's other animals that use

632
01:20:30,416 --> 01:20:34,625
these areas for nursery grounds. So we've

633
01:20:34,625 --> 01:20:36,416
had documentate confirmed documentation

634
01:20:36,416 --> 01:20:40,166
now of skates that use diffuse flow

635
01:20:40,166 --> 01:20:41,041
hydrothermal events

636
01:20:41,041 --> 01:20:43,708
to incubate their eggs.

637
01:20:43,708 --> 01:20:46,041
So they lay their eggs around these

638
01:20:46,041 --> 01:20:47,875
diffuse flow events. And it does two

639
01:20:47,875 --> 01:20:51,541
things. The extra warmth helps the helps

640
01:20:51,541 --> 01:20:53,791
the eggs develop faster. So they hatch

641
01:20:53,791 --> 01:20:55,333
quicker, so they're less at risk of

642
01:20:55,333 --> 01:20:57,541
predation. And then because the plume is

643
01:20:57,541 --> 01:21:00,208
pretty nasty. A lot of predatory animals

644
01:21:00,208 --> 01:21:01,791
don't like to be around them. And so it's

645
01:21:01,791 --> 01:21:03,000
offers a little bit of a protective

646
01:21:03,000 --> 01:21:05,250
barrier as well. So you've got skates to

647
01:21:05,250 --> 01:21:06,750
do that. You also have octopuses that

648
01:21:06,750 --> 01:21:08,666
doesn't convention on migratory species

649
01:21:08,666 --> 01:21:09,708
and particularly concerned with

650
01:21:09,708 --> 01:21:12,166
octopuses. But we do know that there are

651
01:21:12,166 --> 01:21:13,708
octopuses that have a lot of

652
01:21:13,750 --> 01:21:15,666
nursery grounds around diffuse flow

653
01:21:15,666 --> 01:21:17,708
hydrothermal events as well. So there is

654
01:21:17,708 --> 01:21:19,791
direct habitat use for some of the

655
01:21:19,791 --> 01:21:21,583
animals. Well, and going back to the

656
01:21:21,583 --> 01:21:24,333
skates that that was we I had Dr. David

657
01:21:24,333 --> 01:21:26,583
Ebert, who was on that paper. Oh, yeah,

658
01:21:26,750 --> 01:21:29,166
the skates of the Pacific. He'll kill me

659
01:21:29,166 --> 01:21:32,250
that I don't remember the name, but it's

660
01:21:32,250 --> 01:21:34,208
a quite a cool story when we had him on a

661
01:21:34,208 --> 01:21:36,416
few years ago to talk about that. Yeah,

662
01:21:36,416 --> 01:21:39,791
yeah. In terms of impacts directly to the

663
01:21:39,791 --> 01:21:42,291
animals. So there's this plume and

664
01:21:42,291 --> 01:21:43,250
there's a benthic plume.

665
01:21:44,000 --> 01:21:45,791
How much that's going to impact like

666
01:21:45,791 --> 01:21:47,958
migratory species of four or five

667
01:21:47,958 --> 01:21:50,166
thousand feet of meters above not

668
01:21:50,166 --> 01:21:52,625
entirely clear mid water plume though is

669
01:21:52,625 --> 01:21:55,541
being discharged in an area where we have

670
01:21:55,541 --> 01:21:57,500
this tremendous dial vertical migration.

671
01:21:57,708 --> 01:22:00,500
And that is a dial vertical migration of

672
01:22:00,500 --> 01:22:03,041
prey species for lots and lots and lots

673
01:22:03,041 --> 01:22:05,208
of fish in the ocean and whales and

674
01:22:05,208 --> 01:22:07,916
dolphins and turtles and everything else

675
01:22:07,916 --> 01:22:09,625
that likes to prey on mid water

676
01:22:09,625 --> 01:22:11,583
organisms. And so, you know, we're

677
01:22:11,583 --> 01:22:14,541
thinking about disruption to not

678
01:22:14,541 --> 01:22:16,541
necessarily the migratory species

679
01:22:16,541 --> 01:22:17,500
behavior, but also to

680
01:22:17,500 --> 01:22:18,416
the behavior of the prey.

681
01:22:19,000 --> 01:22:22,083
So if that prey behavior is impacted or

682
01:22:22,083 --> 01:22:24,625
if they're accumulating heavy metals as

683
01:22:24,625 --> 01:22:26,541
they're migrating up through this plume

684
01:22:26,541 --> 01:22:28,291
and then those heavy metals bio

685
01:22:28,291 --> 01:22:30,666
accumulate in the predator species that

686
01:22:30,666 --> 01:22:33,041
becomes a pretty substantial problem down

687
01:22:33,041 --> 01:22:34,208
the line for these

688
01:22:34,208 --> 01:22:35,375
very migratory species.

689
01:22:37,041 --> 01:22:38,750
More direct impacts are these entire

690
01:22:38,750 --> 01:22:40,666
process is very noisy. There's been

691
01:22:40,666 --> 01:22:43,500
estimates where the volume of the riser

692
01:22:43,500 --> 01:22:45,458
and lift systems, the actual pumping of

693
01:22:45,458 --> 01:22:48,291
war up, which is, you know, a sound

694
01:22:48,291 --> 01:22:50,583
column that goes the entire water column

695
01:22:50,583 --> 01:22:53,458
and permeates out through the ocean

696
01:22:53,458 --> 01:22:54,291
because sound travels

697
01:22:54,291 --> 01:22:55,166
very well in the ocean.

698
01:22:55,750 --> 01:22:56,666
There are estimates that it could be up

699
01:22:56,666 --> 01:23:00,958
to 120 125 decibels, which is way beyond

700
01:23:00,958 --> 01:23:02,708
the recommended safe range for marine

701
01:23:02,708 --> 01:23:05,208
mammals. And it's a chronic sound. It's

702
01:23:05,208 --> 01:23:06,666
not like, you know, with ground

703
01:23:06,666 --> 01:23:07,333
penetrating or

704
01:23:07,333 --> 01:23:08,666
seafloor penetrating sonar.

705
01:23:09,208 --> 01:23:11,041
It's a tremendously traumatic experience

706
01:23:11,041 --> 01:23:12,875
for animals that are nearby, but it's

707
01:23:12,875 --> 01:23:15,458
quick. It's one big pulse and then it's

708
01:23:15,458 --> 01:23:17,625
done. Yeah, with the riser and lift

709
01:23:17,625 --> 01:23:20,583
system. This is a continuous system. That

710
01:23:20,583 --> 01:23:22,416
noise is going to be generated throughout

711
01:23:22,416 --> 01:23:23,958
the entire mining

712
01:23:23,958 --> 01:23:25,708
operation, which could be a year.

713
01:23:25,750 --> 01:23:29,375
And so we don't really know water column

714
01:23:29,375 --> 01:23:31,666
to write just like one part of the water

715
01:23:31,666 --> 01:23:33,458
columns, the entire water column. Yeah.

716
01:23:33,666 --> 01:23:35,916
So we don't really know what the impact

717
01:23:35,916 --> 01:23:38,625
of chronic noise at that level has on

718
01:23:38,625 --> 01:23:41,000
citations and other sniff for species.

719
01:23:42,291 --> 01:23:44,000
So lots of animals use sound to navigate

720
01:23:44,000 --> 01:23:45,000
the you sound the hunt

721
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:45,708
they use sound to communicate.

722
01:23:46,708 --> 01:23:50,250
And, you know, we have some good studies

723
01:23:50,250 --> 01:23:53,416
on, you know, acute sound impacts where

724
01:23:53,416 --> 01:23:55,333
you generate a really, really fast high

725
01:23:55,333 --> 01:23:58,375
volume noise. We have a few studies on

726
01:23:58,375 --> 01:24:00,166
like the impacts of like dredging

727
01:24:00,166 --> 01:24:03,208
operations. So kind of that low deep

728
01:24:03,208 --> 01:24:04,708
rumble that comes when

729
01:24:04,708 --> 01:24:05,708
you're operating a dredge.

730
01:24:05,750 --> 01:24:08,666
But even those are days to weeks, not

731
01:24:08,666 --> 01:24:11,458
months to years. So the impact of this

732
01:24:11,458 --> 01:24:13,708
kind of sustained high volume sound

733
01:24:13,708 --> 01:24:15,500
across the whole water column is

734
01:24:15,500 --> 01:24:17,125
something that has not really been

735
01:24:17,125 --> 01:24:18,708
studied in any in any kind of detail.

736
01:24:18,708 --> 01:24:22,500
And also, like, if you think about it,

737
01:24:22,500 --> 01:24:24,375
too, like, it's interesting how you talk

738
01:24:24,375 --> 01:24:26,208
about the entire water columns affected,

739
01:24:26,208 --> 01:24:28,000
especially, you know, with noise, we know

740
01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:30,916
that there are marine mammals that

741
01:24:30,916 --> 01:24:33,083
they're use noise to communicate to feed

742
01:24:33,083 --> 01:24:33,708
to hunt and all that kind of stuff.

743
01:24:34,708 --> 01:24:40,333
They will avoid areas with noise, we've

744
01:24:40,333 --> 01:24:42,166
seen it happen before, will they avoid

745
01:24:42,166 --> 01:24:44,666
this area? We don't know. But they've in

746
01:24:44,666 --> 01:24:46,750
the past, certain marine mammal species

747
01:24:46,750 --> 01:24:50,250
will avoid areas that have noise. Now,

748
01:24:50,250 --> 01:24:52,666
the one thing about the guns like the

749
01:24:52,666 --> 01:24:55,208
seismic guns and acoustic guns is that,

750
01:24:55,208 --> 01:24:56,541
like you said, they kind of sneak up on

751
01:24:56,541 --> 01:24:58,666
you, they come in, they go regular pace,

752
01:24:58,666 --> 01:25:00,500
but it's still, you know, it's a pulse.

753
01:25:00,500 --> 01:25:00,708
It's not like a continuous.

754
01:25:00,708 --> 01:25:04,166
So it kind of almost, you know, you can

755
01:25:04,166 --> 01:25:05,833
marine mammal, you can almost argue that

756
01:25:05,833 --> 01:25:07,625
it gets sucked in not knowing that this,

757
01:25:07,625 --> 01:25:11,000
this, this noise is here and then it then

758
01:25:11,000 --> 01:25:12,291
it gets exposed to this noise.

759
01:25:12,541 --> 01:25:14,041
Obviously, there's rules and regulations

760
01:25:14,041 --> 01:25:15,833
around that. But, you know, it's hard to

761
01:25:15,833 --> 01:25:17,916
avoid with a chronic one that's

762
01:25:17,916 --> 01:25:18,958
happening, though, you're just going to

763
01:25:18,958 --> 01:25:21,333
get probably you can almost I mean, this

764
01:25:21,333 --> 01:25:21,708
research needs to be done, which we'll talk about at the end of this episode.

765
01:25:22,708 --> 01:25:26,708
But you can probably look at with a

766
01:25:26,708 --> 01:25:28,208
chronic noise is just going to be

767
01:25:28,208 --> 01:25:31,250
avoidance. Yeah, altogether. And we know

768
01:25:31,250 --> 01:25:33,541
that marine mammals are in areas like the

769
01:25:33,541 --> 01:25:35,625
clarinating clipper zone. So we know that

770
01:25:35,625 --> 01:25:39,208
they feed off there. And so if they're if

771
01:25:39,208 --> 01:25:42,000
they avoid that because of noise, then

772
01:25:42,000 --> 01:25:44,250
how are they going to feed like, it's

773
01:25:44,250 --> 01:25:47,125
just it's just this, this problem is

774
01:25:47,125 --> 01:25:49,291
continuous problem that happens, even

775
01:25:49,291 --> 01:25:49,708
though we don't know for sure. But like the prediction could be there.

776
01:25:50,708 --> 01:25:55,375
Based on the research and so forth. Well,

777
01:25:55,375 --> 01:25:56,750
if you imagine it, imagine if your

778
01:25:56,750 --> 01:25:58,250
favorite restaurant was right next to a

779
01:25:58,250 --> 01:26:00,583
construction site, you just stopped going

780
01:26:00,583 --> 01:26:03,041
to that restaurant. Exactly. And if that

781
01:26:03,041 --> 01:26:04,583
was, you know, what if that was the only

782
01:26:04,583 --> 01:26:07,666
taco place in town? Yep, then that would

783
01:26:07,666 --> 01:26:09,500
be a tragedy. Because you wouldn't be

784
01:26:09,500 --> 01:26:11,000
able to get any tacos, you wouldn't be

785
01:26:11,000 --> 01:26:12,708
able to get tacos, you have to go the next town over. And that's the thing. And then you're looking at, you know, they're already, you know, all these marine mammals are already going. They're under enough. And they're going to be like, oh, I'm going to get a taco place in town.

786
01:26:12,750 --> 01:26:15,375
And that's the thing. And then you're

787
01:26:15,375 --> 01:26:16,708
looking at, you know, they're already,

788
01:26:16,708 --> 01:26:17,791
you know, all these marine mammals are

789
01:26:17,791 --> 01:26:19,583
already going, they're under enough

790
01:26:19,583 --> 01:26:22,541
stress with climate change and finding

791
01:26:22,541 --> 01:26:25,250
food and their food patterns are changing

792
01:26:25,250 --> 01:26:28,750
and a lot of areas. Now we're looking at

793
01:26:28,750 --> 01:26:31,541
another human caused disturbance, direct

794
01:26:31,541 --> 01:26:33,166
human caused disturbance that they could

795
01:26:33,166 --> 01:26:33,708
avoid this area altogether.

796
01:26:34,708 --> 01:26:37,250
So climate change also came up as a

797
01:26:37,250 --> 01:26:38,875
confounding factor in all of this,

798
01:26:38,875 --> 01:26:40,833
because one of the things that is

799
01:26:40,833 --> 01:26:43,583
happening is as the world is heating up,

800
01:26:44,250 --> 01:26:47,500
and as ocean currents are changing, these

801
01:26:47,500 --> 01:26:48,333
migratory species

802
01:26:48,333 --> 01:26:48,708
migration routes change.

803
01:26:48,708 --> 01:26:52,958
And so we identified several cases where

804
01:26:52,958 --> 01:26:55,000
there isn't currently any known

805
01:26:55,000 --> 01:26:58,000
interaction. But as we see these range

806
01:26:58,000 --> 01:27:00,875
expansions happening, we can see where 10

807
01:27:00,875 --> 01:27:03,291
1520 years down the road, we're going to

808
01:27:03,291 --> 01:27:05,000
start seeing many more encounters between

809
01:27:05,000 --> 01:27:06,708
certain marine species and these sites.

810
01:27:06,708 --> 01:27:09,958
One of the big examples is the camps

811
01:27:09,958 --> 01:27:12,875
Ridley turtle. Camps Ridley turtles, they

812
01:27:12,875 --> 01:27:14,583
usually hang out in the Gulf of Mexico

813
01:27:14,583 --> 01:27:17,458
and the US East Coast. Nice, comfortable,

814
01:27:17,458 --> 01:27:19,458
protected, lovely. But they're also

815
01:27:19,458 --> 01:27:21,583
starting to turn up in Europe. We found

816
01:27:21,583 --> 01:27:24,875
them as far as the Netherlands. So

817
01:27:24,875 --> 01:27:26,708
they're undergoing a range of things now.

818
01:27:26,708 --> 01:27:29,250
Yeah. And so they're crossing the

819
01:27:29,250 --> 01:27:30,625
Atlantic, then they're crossing those

820
01:27:30,625 --> 01:27:33,166
same least plots that the eels are

821
01:27:33,166 --> 01:27:35,166
crossing. And so there's a very real

822
01:27:35,166 --> 01:27:37,125
possibility that, you know, the problems

823
01:27:37,125 --> 01:27:38,666
we think are going to be the big problems

824
01:27:38,666 --> 01:27:40,583
today are not going to be the big

825
01:27:40,583 --> 01:27:42,750
problems in 20 years because these

826
01:27:42,750 --> 01:27:44,208
animals are changing where they're going.

827
01:27:44,833 --> 01:27:46,000
And they're changing where they're going

828
01:27:46,000 --> 01:27:46,708
because we're changing the climate.

829
01:27:47,708 --> 01:27:50,500
Yeah, yeah. And I can see it being a

830
01:27:50,500 --> 01:27:55,041
confounding factor. Taking a, you know,

831
01:27:55,041 --> 01:27:56,833
taking a bite out of sort of the

832
01:27:56,833 --> 01:28:00,500
survivability, you know, as we as we go

833
01:28:00,500 --> 01:28:01,750
through and look at these

834
01:28:01,750 --> 01:28:02,708
and look at these animals.

835
01:28:03,708 --> 01:28:06,083
That's interesting. So we talked. Okay,

836
01:28:06,083 --> 01:28:08,083
so we got marine mammals, we can see how

837
01:28:08,083 --> 01:28:10,958
they can be affected noise. We can see

838
01:28:10,958 --> 01:28:13,958
affected like, you know, prey that goes

839
01:28:13,958 --> 01:28:15,666
that might go down. They might be chasing

840
01:28:15,666 --> 01:28:17,708
prey down into the deep or into at least the mid column.

841
01:28:17,750 --> 01:28:22,250
Now, let's talk about something like I

842
01:28:22,250 --> 01:28:24,750
guess the the the animal that would

843
01:28:24,750 --> 01:28:27,541
probably be the extreme opposite that I

844
01:28:27,541 --> 01:28:29,833
would think would be seabirds right

845
01:28:29,833 --> 01:28:32,041
seabirds fly in the air, they come down

846
01:28:32,041 --> 01:28:34,750
to feed, but they're going to try and get

847
01:28:34,750 --> 01:28:36,416
back into the air, how would they be

848
01:28:36,416 --> 01:28:38,708
affected? I can see prey right off the bat.

849
01:28:38,708 --> 01:28:41,750
Yeah. How else would they be affected?

850
01:28:42,458 --> 01:28:45,791
So we looked at all the migratory birds

851
01:28:45,791 --> 01:28:48,083
and all the ranges covered by the CMS.

852
01:28:49,666 --> 01:28:53,500
And it's only about 7% of birds covered

853
01:28:53,500 --> 01:28:56,208
by CMS that would interact with known

854
01:28:56,208 --> 01:28:58,000
marine mining sites, but it's all the

855
01:28:58,000 --> 01:28:58,708
major families of seabirds, which is not a surprise.

856
01:28:58,750 --> 01:29:02,958
So you're talking about things like

857
01:29:02,958 --> 01:29:06,000
wandering albatrosses and petrels and,

858
01:29:06,000 --> 01:29:08,500
you know, a lot of these big ocean

859
01:29:08,500 --> 01:29:10,625
spanning birds that spend most of their

860
01:29:10,625 --> 01:29:13,666
life in the air. And so you think, okay,

861
01:29:13,875 --> 01:29:15,208
there probably won't be a ton of

862
01:29:15,208 --> 01:29:17,041
interactions there. But a few things

863
01:29:17,041 --> 01:29:19,708
really interesting happen when you have a ship on station for a long period of time.

864
01:29:20,708 --> 01:29:25,416
In the case of a mining operation, we're

865
01:29:25,416 --> 01:29:28,125
talking years, ship becomes a fish

866
01:29:28,125 --> 01:29:30,583
aggregating device. And you've been out

867
01:29:30,583 --> 01:29:32,583
to sea, you've seen it. So when you've

868
01:29:32,583 --> 01:29:34,333
got a ship on station, and you sit there

869
01:29:34,333 --> 01:29:37,166
for a month, a year, tons of fish

870
01:29:37,166 --> 01:29:37,708
underneath you, if you're there for a year even more.

871
01:29:38,708 --> 01:29:42,125
And so there's a question of if you have

872
01:29:42,125 --> 01:29:44,833
predatory seabirds, now you are creating

873
01:29:44,833 --> 01:29:46,458
feeding sites for them, is that going to

874
01:29:46,458 --> 01:29:49,083
negatively impact them? We have studies

875
01:29:49,083 --> 01:29:53,250
from offshore oil and gas where oil rigs

876
01:29:53,250 --> 01:29:53,708
are attracted to a lot of seabirds.

877
01:29:53,708 --> 01:29:57,208
So they'll come in the land and then it

878
01:29:57,208 --> 01:29:59,041
will disrupt the migration patterns. And,

879
01:29:59,041 --> 01:30:01,083
you know, if you're an albatross and you

880
01:30:01,083 --> 01:30:02,375
land somewhere where you don't have a big

881
01:30:02,375 --> 01:30:03,750
enough runway to take off again, you

882
01:30:03,750 --> 01:30:07,750
can't fly. Because albatrosses are the

883
01:30:07,750 --> 01:30:09,666
least effective bird

884
01:30:09,666 --> 01:30:10,916
that can actually fly.

885
01:30:12,250 --> 01:30:13,166
They are massive too.

886
01:30:13,666 --> 01:30:15,125
They're massive. They need a long run. I

887
01:30:15,125 --> 01:30:16,791
mean, I've seen albatrosses break their

888
01:30:16,791 --> 01:30:18,416
legs on landing. They're not like,

889
01:30:18,833 --> 01:30:19,708
they're not built for the they may be built for the flight. They're not built for the flight.

890
01:30:19,875 --> 01:30:24,791
Evolution is nothing kind of them.

891
01:30:27,458 --> 01:30:29,875
But, you know, so you have this, this

892
01:30:29,875 --> 01:30:32,041
bird attractant. On the other hand, when

893
01:30:32,041 --> 01:30:35,500
you look at offshore wind farms, birds

894
01:30:35,500 --> 01:30:37,500
tend to avoid them. The big seabirds tend

895
01:30:37,500 --> 01:30:40,000
to not go near the offshore wind farms.

896
01:30:40,291 --> 01:30:42,333
And so, you know, we don't know, are

897
01:30:42,333 --> 01:30:43,375
these mining vessels going

898
01:30:43,375 --> 01:30:44,541
to act more like oil rigs?

899
01:30:45,708 --> 01:30:46,833
Or is it going to be more like an

900
01:30:46,833 --> 01:30:50,291
offshore wind farm? They produce a lot of

901
01:30:50,291 --> 01:30:51,833
light, light at night. So that's going to

902
01:30:51,833 --> 01:30:55,333
be attracted to seabirds. But in terms of

903
01:30:55,333 --> 01:30:57,000
in terms of the groups of animals that

904
01:30:57,000 --> 01:30:58,541
are going to suffer the most consequences

905
01:30:58,541 --> 01:30:59,291
from deep sea mining

906
01:30:59,291 --> 01:31:00,708
seabirds are not high on that list.

907
01:31:00,750 --> 01:31:03,791
I think, generally speaking, they

908
01:31:03,791 --> 01:31:05,916
wouldn't be my my first point of concern.

909
01:31:06,458 --> 01:31:08,500
My first point of concern would be the

910
01:31:08,500 --> 01:31:11,375
cetaceans. Yeah. Sea turtles.

911
01:31:12,750 --> 01:31:14,541
Less so sharks other than for like the

912
01:31:14,541 --> 01:31:16,416
essential nursery ground issues and for

913
01:31:16,416 --> 01:31:19,125
those specific specific feeding sites.

914
01:31:20,625 --> 01:31:23,500
And then, you know, I talk a lot about

915
01:31:23,500 --> 01:31:25,083
eels because I just found the eel store

916
01:31:25,083 --> 01:31:27,291
story so fascinated. But fascinating.

917
01:31:27,958 --> 01:31:29,916
The reality is that, you know, I think

918
01:31:29,916 --> 01:31:32,166
eels have a lot more things to worry

919
01:31:32,166 --> 01:31:35,333
about before they. Well, they're very

920
01:31:35,333 --> 01:31:37,375
threatening and it's a threatened

921
01:31:37,375 --> 01:31:39,750
fishery. And they're very highly managed.

922
01:31:40,208 --> 01:31:42,375
And, you know, they're facing a lot of

923
01:31:42,375 --> 01:31:44,041
environmental challenges right now.

924
01:31:44,500 --> 01:31:45,916
You know, it's a shame if deep sea mining

925
01:31:45,916 --> 01:31:47,750
adds to that. But, you know, I think the

926
01:31:47,750 --> 01:31:49,375
greatest threats from deep sea mining are

927
01:31:49,375 --> 01:31:52,666
the threats to the cetaceans. Great. And

928
01:31:52,666 --> 01:31:54,458
threats to sea turtles. The other thing

929
01:31:54,458 --> 01:31:55,791
that happens that we haven't talked about

930
01:31:55,791 --> 01:31:56,708
yet is ship strikes.

931
01:31:56,750 --> 01:31:59,875
So these are these mining operations are

932
01:31:59,875 --> 01:32:01,708
not happening in happening in areas that

933
01:32:01,708 --> 01:32:04,750
have a lot of ship traffic. But if you

934
01:32:04,750 --> 01:32:06,375
are like some of the companies have

935
01:32:06,375 --> 01:32:08,291
proposals where they have barges coming

936
01:32:08,291 --> 01:32:10,333
in and out to offload nodules or to

937
01:32:10,333 --> 01:32:11,708
offload or and bring it back to shore.

938
01:32:11,750 --> 01:32:13,875
So you're talking about, you know,

939
01:32:14,291 --> 01:32:16,666
several ships a week, maybe several ships

940
01:32:16,666 --> 01:32:18,041
a day, depending on the scale of the

941
01:32:18,041 --> 01:32:19,958
mining operation that they're offloading

942
01:32:19,958 --> 01:32:21,875
into. Now you've dramatically increased

943
01:32:21,875 --> 01:32:24,000
the number of vessels in the area. And

944
01:32:24,000 --> 01:32:25,708
that dramatically increases the risk of

945
01:32:25,708 --> 01:32:27,333
ship strikes to whales, to

946
01:32:27,333 --> 01:32:28,708
dolphins and to sea turtles.

947
01:32:28,708 --> 01:32:31,041
The good news with ship strikes is we

948
01:32:31,041 --> 01:32:33,625
know how to avoid ship strikes. Like

949
01:32:33,625 --> 01:32:35,333
there are protocols in place that you can

950
01:32:35,333 --> 01:32:37,708
implement to reduce the risk of ship

951
01:32:37,708 --> 01:32:39,791
strikes. And the challenge there is

952
01:32:39,791 --> 01:32:41,375
convincing mining contractors that, hey,

953
01:32:41,375 --> 01:32:42,291
if you're going to be running a lot of

954
01:32:42,291 --> 01:32:44,541
boats out here, and we know that whales

955
01:32:44,541 --> 01:32:45,708
migrate through this area.

956
01:32:45,750 --> 01:32:49,375
Especially like the CCZ we know for sure,

957
01:32:49,375 --> 01:32:51,166
because we've got those feeding gauges.

958
01:32:51,166 --> 01:32:53,333
We also have one in the mining companies

959
01:32:53,333 --> 01:32:54,916
was nice enough to put out acoustic

960
01:32:54,916 --> 01:32:56,875
moorings, both at depth and at the

961
01:32:56,875 --> 01:32:58,875
surface. And so we have a lot of very

962
01:32:58,875 --> 01:33:02,500
lovely recordings of dolphin whistles and

963
01:33:02,500 --> 01:33:04,708
minky whale calls and sperm whale clicks.

964
01:33:04,750 --> 01:33:07,166
So we do know that cetaceans are very

965
01:33:07,166 --> 01:33:09,416
active in that area. And so, you know, if

966
01:33:09,416 --> 01:33:10,750
you're operating an area where you know

967
01:33:10,750 --> 01:33:12,000
that cetaceans are going to be, you got

968
01:33:12,000 --> 01:33:13,791
to slow your boats down. You got to have

969
01:33:13,791 --> 01:33:16,666
continuous persistent monitoring. And you

970
01:33:16,666 --> 01:33:19,166
got to keep it low, keep it slow.

971
01:33:20,208 --> 01:33:22,875
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there's a

972
01:33:22,875 --> 01:33:24,375
lot of things like that we don't really

973
01:33:24,375 --> 01:33:26,208
realize is happening. I think a lot of

974
01:33:26,208 --> 01:33:27,708
times we think of just the operation

975
01:33:27,708 --> 01:33:29,875
itself, you know, down at the bottom, we

976
01:33:29,875 --> 01:33:31,708
don't realize the logistics of getting

977
01:33:31,708 --> 01:33:33,416
ships there, getting ships

978
01:33:33,416 --> 01:33:33,708
like situated on their own.

979
01:33:33,708 --> 01:33:35,458
Like situated on there, how long they're

980
01:33:35,458 --> 01:33:37,125
going to be there, how they're getting

981
01:33:37,125 --> 01:33:40,958
the or up to the boat, the noise that's

982
01:33:40,958 --> 01:33:43,916
around it, the lights, there's a lot of

983
01:33:43,916 --> 01:33:47,083
when you look at it in a proper study

984
01:33:47,083 --> 01:33:49,291
like you did and look at these effects,

985
01:33:49,500 --> 01:33:50,666
we see that these

986
01:33:50,666 --> 01:33:52,708
animals can be effective.

987
01:33:52,708 --> 01:33:58,833
Now this is very localized areas to write

988
01:33:58,833 --> 01:34:00,291
like these are like these are going to be

989
01:34:00,291 --> 01:34:02,500
ships in the middle of the sea. Is it

990
01:34:02,500 --> 01:34:03,916
going to be one ship is it gonna be many

991
01:34:03,916 --> 01:34:05,958
ships? Like how do you think this is

992
01:34:05,958 --> 01:34:07,625
going to play out from what you know

993
01:34:07,625 --> 01:34:08,708
about these deep sea mining operations?

994
01:34:08,708 --> 01:34:13,458
So if you look at the projections for the

995
01:34:13,458 --> 01:34:17,708
scale of the industry, and you take their

996
01:34:17,708 --> 01:34:22,958
most optimistic projections, you know, in

997
01:34:22,958 --> 01:34:25,083
the near future, if deep sea mining goes

998
01:34:25,083 --> 01:34:27,500
forward, it's going to be probably one

999
01:34:27,500 --> 01:34:30,125
mining vessel to mining vessels operating

1000
01:34:30,125 --> 01:34:32,708
in the Pacific at any one time with support vessels coming in and out.

1001
01:34:32,958 --> 01:34:39,041
But to actually meet the resource demands

1002
01:34:39,041 --> 01:34:40,791
that deep sea mining companies claim that

1003
01:34:40,791 --> 01:34:45,000
they can meet to functionally outcompete

1004
01:34:45,000 --> 01:34:46,750
the Democratic Republic of the Congo for

1005
01:34:46,750 --> 01:34:48,583
production of cobalt. You're talking

1006
01:34:48,583 --> 01:34:50,708
about 30 vessels operating in areas that cover hundreds of thousands of acres of sea floor.

1007
01:34:50,708 --> 01:34:57,541
So small cities. So it can be I mean,

1008
01:34:57,541 --> 01:35:00,166
it's a mega project. It is, you know, it

1009
01:35:00,166 --> 01:35:02,208
is on the scale of building some of the

1010
01:35:02,208 --> 01:35:03,791
biggest dams in the world that is on the

1011
01:35:03,791 --> 01:35:05,708
scale of some of the biggest engineering

1012
01:35:05,708 --> 01:35:07,208
projects that humans have ever

1013
01:35:07,208 --> 01:35:10,166
undertaken. It's huge. If it gets all the

1014
01:35:10,166 --> 01:35:12,375
way to scale, I you know, whether or not

1015
01:35:12,375 --> 01:35:14,833
you see mining reaches the scale that is

1016
01:35:14,833 --> 01:35:16,125
predicted in the most optimistic

1017
01:35:16,125 --> 01:35:18,708
projections is definitely something that

1018
01:35:18,708 --> 01:35:19,708
remains very much to the point where you're going to be able to do that.

1019
01:35:19,708 --> 01:35:22,500
And I think that's a very much tenuous. I

1020
01:35:22,500 --> 01:35:24,250
think the most budgeting. Oh, sorry, go

1021
01:35:24,250 --> 01:35:26,916
ahead. Sorry, as you before you go on to

1022
01:35:26,916 --> 01:35:30,000
that, when you mention it, I think of the

1023
01:35:30,000 --> 01:35:33,000
sort of the oil and gas field in the Gulf

1024
01:35:33,000 --> 01:35:35,416
of Mexico, right? Yeah, just south of

1025
01:35:35,416 --> 01:35:36,750
Louisiana, where you just see all these

1026
01:35:36,750 --> 01:35:39,083
oil platforms, and they look like a city.

1027
01:35:39,708 --> 01:35:41,000
That's what I'm picturing. Is that what

1028
01:35:41,000 --> 01:35:42,291
you're thinking? If it gets to full

1029
01:35:42,291 --> 01:35:43,500
scale, like we're gonna see that, but

1030
01:35:43,500 --> 01:35:46,166
it's boats, essentially. Essentially,

1031
01:35:46,166 --> 01:35:48,083
yes. Yeah. You know, I don't think we're

1032
01:35:48,083 --> 01:35:48,708
going to see that likely in the next few years.

1033
01:35:48,750 --> 01:35:53,041
I think, you know, even if it does

1034
01:35:53,041 --> 01:35:56,000
progress at its current pace, it's still

1035
01:35:56,000 --> 01:35:57,541
going to be a slow developing industry

1036
01:35:57,541 --> 01:35:59,791
and it's still got a lot to prove and a

1037
01:35:59,791 --> 01:36:01,291
lot of technology that's still up in the

1038
01:36:01,291 --> 01:36:04,875
air. So, you know, one of the beautiful

1039
01:36:04,875 --> 01:36:07,458
things and I've said this before, one of

1040
01:36:07,458 --> 01:36:09,000
the great things about this current

1041
01:36:09,000 --> 01:36:12,125
moment is that, you know, never before in

1042
01:36:12,125 --> 01:36:15,166
history, have we started an extractive

1043
01:36:15,166 --> 01:36:18,083
industry by leading with

1044
01:36:18,083 --> 01:36:18,708
environmental development.

1045
01:36:30,291 --> 01:36:32,458
And so, you know, we have a real

1046
01:36:32,458 --> 01:36:35,083
opportunity now. And this is like, you

1047
01:36:35,083 --> 01:36:36,708
know, this is, you know, pedal to the metal at the moment for making sure that we know everything we possibly can before the first ounce of commercial or is lifted from the sea floor.

1048
01:36:37,000 --> 01:36:47,125
But like, this is our moment to really

1049
01:36:47,125 --> 01:36:49,250
figure out, okay, what do we know? What

1050
01:36:49,250 --> 01:36:51,375
don't we know? How is this industry going

1051
01:36:51,375 --> 01:36:53,541
to affect the global ocean? And what can

1052
01:36:53,541 --> 01:36:56,958
we do to make sure that we don't cause

1053
01:36:56,958 --> 01:37:00,416
lasting harm to the ocean in pursuit of,

1054
01:37:00,750 --> 01:37:02,375
you know, temporary material games?

1055
01:37:03,916 --> 01:37:05,791
Amazing. Now, with all the information

1056
01:37:05,791 --> 01:37:06,708
that you came up with, I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. And I think that's a really good question. And I think that's a really good question.

1057
01:37:06,708 --> 01:37:07,250
So what we are gonna start off with,

1058
01:37:07,250 --> 01:37:09,333
there's still a lot of information that

1059
01:37:09,333 --> 01:37:11,291
we don't know. Can you talk? This is a

1060
01:37:11,291 --> 01:37:12,916
knowledge gap study that the entire

1061
01:37:12,916 --> 01:37:16,333
studies about what we don't know. So How

1062
01:37:16,333 --> 01:37:19,583
do you how do we progress in an

1063
01:37:19,583 --> 01:37:20,583
assessment where we don't

1064
01:37:20,583 --> 01:37:21,875
have a lot of information?

1065
01:37:25,708 --> 01:37:28,583
that we're talking about are going to be

1066
01:37:28,583 --> 01:37:31,166
protected from the implications and the

1067
01:37:31,166 --> 01:37:33,500
consequences of DC mining. So at the

1068
01:37:33,500 --> 01:37:35,333
international level, and this is a UN

1069
01:37:35,333 --> 01:37:38,000
report by a UN agency, so it's working on

1070
01:37:38,000 --> 01:37:40,625
international issues that, you know, some

1071
01:37:40,625 --> 01:37:42,250
countries like the United States of

1072
01:37:42,250 --> 01:37:44,666
America are not as engaged on as others,

1073
01:37:45,333 --> 01:37:47,708
but in the international arena the

1074
01:37:47,708 --> 01:37:49,583
Convention on Migratory Species is

1075
01:37:49,583 --> 01:37:52,125
having their COP, their Convention of the

1076
01:37:52,125 --> 01:37:54,666
Parties, in February. They will adopt a

1077
01:37:54,708 --> 01:37:57,083
set of recommendations about research

1078
01:37:57,083 --> 01:38:00,625
priorities and management priorities

1079
01:38:00,625 --> 01:38:02,875
that they want to see reflected in the

1080
01:38:02,875 --> 01:38:05,083
mining code, and they will liaise with

1081
01:38:05,458 --> 01:38:07,583
the International Seabed Authority about

1082
01:38:07,583 --> 01:38:09,875
how their priorities and their needs get

1083
01:38:09,875 --> 01:38:12,416
implemented into the code being developed

1084
01:38:12,416 --> 01:38:13,750
by the International Seabed Authority.

1085
01:38:15,000 --> 01:38:16,666
For the vast majority of countries in the

1086
01:38:16,666 --> 01:38:19,458
world that are party to both the UN

1087
01:38:19,458 --> 01:38:21,083
Convention of the Law of the Sea and the

1088
01:38:21,083 --> 01:38:22,833
conventional migratory species, which is

1089
01:38:22,833 --> 01:38:26,500
most countries, the US being the big

1090
01:38:26,500 --> 01:38:28,750
exception to that rule, we never ratified

1091
01:38:28,833 --> 01:38:32,708
UNCLOS, so most countries will be

1092
01:38:32,708 --> 01:38:33,916
beholden to those decisions.

1093
01:38:35,500 --> 01:38:36,958
Unfortunately some countries won't and

1094
01:38:36,958 --> 01:38:38,833
that will require campaigning within

1095
01:38:38,833 --> 01:38:41,500
your country if you are a citizen of a

1096
01:38:41,500 --> 01:38:43,000
country that is not party to those

1097
01:38:43,000 --> 01:38:47,958
treaties. Right, right, interesting. So

1098
01:38:47,958 --> 01:38:52,791
like the research that's going to come

1099
01:38:52,833 --> 01:38:56,958
out after this, are people watching this

1100
01:38:56,958 --> 01:38:58,333
study, are people looking at the study,

1101
01:38:58,541 --> 01:38:59,708
are other researchers being like,

1102
01:38:59,791 --> 01:39:02,500
"Okay, this is how we are going to look

1103
01:39:02,500 --> 01:39:05,833
at it in the future?" And does funding

1104
01:39:05,833 --> 01:39:09,416
allow to fill those gaps?

1105
01:39:11,041 --> 01:39:13,625
So yes, there are research institutions

1106
01:39:13,625 --> 01:39:16,416
and countries, so the study itself was

1107
01:39:16,416 --> 01:39:19,791
sponsored by Australia and Monaco.

1108
01:39:20,791 --> 01:39:23,000
So they have a very big interest in

1109
01:39:23,000 --> 01:39:23,708
determining what the

1110
01:39:23,708 --> 01:39:25,375
research priorities should be.

1111
01:39:26,541 --> 01:39:28,041
But the recommendations themselves go

1112
01:39:28,041 --> 01:39:30,083
through the ISA and so then the ISA comes

1113
01:39:30,083 --> 01:39:32,250
back and says, "Okay, understanding

1114
01:39:32,250 --> 01:39:35,458
impacts on highly migratory species is a

1115
01:39:35,458 --> 01:39:38,000
necessary part of the environmental

1116
01:39:38,000 --> 01:39:39,333
impact assessment that a mining

1117
01:39:39,333 --> 01:39:40,583
contractor has to conduct."

1118
01:39:40,833 --> 01:39:43,250
So now this also has to be a part of

1119
01:39:43,250 --> 01:39:44,791
their environmental studies as well.

1120
01:39:44,833 --> 01:39:49,541
So it is a way to ensure that the data is

1121
01:39:49,541 --> 01:39:51,833
being collected by the mining companies

1122
01:39:51,833 --> 01:39:54,000
beforehand because right now no one's

1123
01:39:54,000 --> 01:39:55,916
really collecting a ton of data about

1124
01:39:55,916 --> 01:39:56,916
highly migratory species.

1125
01:39:57,500 --> 01:39:59,000
We actually went through the deep data

1126
01:39:59,000 --> 01:40:01,208
database which is maintained by the ISA

1127
01:40:01,208 --> 01:40:03,791
to look at all the actual records of

1128
01:40:03,791 --> 01:40:04,916
highly migratory species

1129
01:40:04,916 --> 01:40:07,833
and it was less than 20.

1130
01:40:08,791 --> 01:40:09,208
Really? Really?

1131
01:40:09,875 --> 01:40:12,875
Yeah. So no one's like, and most of them

1132
01:40:12,875 --> 01:40:15,500
were identified to like family level,

1133
01:40:16,000 --> 01:40:17,875
some of them like phyla level.

1134
01:40:18,541 --> 01:40:20,333
Yeah, so when you really include those,

1135
01:40:21,458 --> 01:40:22,291
you can put it at one point.

1136
01:40:22,291 --> 01:40:24,000
There were groups that was just like the

1137
01:40:24,000 --> 01:40:25,208
lowest taxonomic

1138
01:40:25,208 --> 01:40:27,458
identification was avian.

1139
01:40:29,208 --> 01:40:32,375
Which, you know, fair if it's a bunch of

1140
01:40:32,375 --> 01:40:34,541
geologists on a mining boat, they don't

1141
01:40:34,541 --> 01:40:35,416
know what a bird is.

1142
01:40:36,000 --> 01:40:37,125
No, true, true.

1143
01:40:39,791 --> 01:40:43,333
But you can't expect people to anticipate

1144
01:40:43,333 --> 01:40:45,375
ahead of time like, oh, all the things

1145
01:40:45,375 --> 01:40:46,458
we're going to need to know, that's

1146
01:40:46,458 --> 01:40:47,250
something that develops

1147
01:40:47,250 --> 01:40:48,333
in the industry matures.

1148
01:40:48,916 --> 01:40:50,166
And so, you know, being able to say, you

1149
01:40:50,166 --> 01:40:51,375
know, you should have someone on your

1150
01:40:51,375 --> 01:40:52,916
boat that can identify an albatross.

1151
01:40:53,791 --> 01:40:55,375
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

1152
01:40:55,458 --> 01:40:56,333
Might be a useful thing.

1153
01:40:57,250 --> 01:40:59,291
Yeah. Well, and that's where I think, you

1154
01:40:59,291 --> 01:41:01,125
know, when you look at the regulations.

1155
01:41:01,541 --> 01:41:03,041
So you mentioned, you know, this goes to

1156
01:41:03,041 --> 01:41:05,625
the ISA. The ISA kind of says, okay,

1157
01:41:05,625 --> 01:41:06,791
we're going to start to, they're going to look at it.

1158
01:41:06,791 --> 01:41:10,250
And hopefully they adopted as part of

1159
01:41:10,250 --> 01:41:11,958
like the assessments that are done by

1160
01:41:11,958 --> 01:41:15,041
each country, you know, or each, I guess,

1161
01:41:15,041 --> 01:41:17,208
operator with any, like wherever that

1162
01:41:17,208 --> 01:41:18,958
whatever area that they're doing, whether

1163
01:41:18,958 --> 01:41:20,541
it's the high seas or it's in a country.

1164
01:41:20,833 --> 01:41:24,958
Does the ISA have the ability to enforce

1165
01:41:24,958 --> 01:41:27,875
that to say, hey, you guys have to get

1166
01:41:27,875 --> 01:41:30,375
these consultants who know birds and know

1167
01:41:30,375 --> 01:41:32,083
marine mammals, and they're going to

1168
01:41:32,083 --> 01:41:33,500
start looking at what's around while

1169
01:41:33,500 --> 01:41:34,125
you're doing your

1170
01:41:34,125 --> 01:41:36,500
exploration and all that kind of stuff?

1171
01:41:36,500 --> 01:41:38,375
Like, do they have my understanding is

1172
01:41:38,375 --> 01:41:39,416
they don't have that authority. And

1173
01:41:39,416 --> 01:41:42,125
basically, I say has no has no

1174
01:41:42,125 --> 01:41:43,916
enforcement capacity right now. They have

1175
01:41:43,916 --> 01:41:45,291
an enforcement mandate. They don't have

1176
01:41:45,291 --> 01:41:45,791
enforcement capacity.

1177
01:41:45,791 --> 01:41:48,625
This would be more of a like, you know,

1178
01:41:48,625 --> 01:41:49,916
these are the kinds of requirements that

1179
01:41:49,916 --> 01:41:51,375
we need from an environmental impact

1180
01:41:51,375 --> 01:41:53,416
assessment. And then that assessment gets

1181
01:41:53,416 --> 01:41:57,208
reviewed by the ISA and get signed off on

1182
01:41:57,208 --> 01:41:58,875
or rejected depending on whether or not

1183
01:41:58,875 --> 01:42:00,541
they hit a certain level of benchmarks.

1184
01:42:02,208 --> 01:42:03,333
You know, that means like, this is all

1185
01:42:03,333 --> 01:42:05,666
politics at that level. Yeah. And so

1186
01:42:05,666 --> 01:42:07,375
there will be many delegations that will

1187
01:42:07,375 --> 01:42:09,333
be arguing, no, no, we must know exactly

1188
01:42:09,333 --> 01:42:10,916
what is happening to our sperm whales.

1189
01:42:10,916 --> 01:42:11,791
And there will be delegation going.

1190
01:42:11,791 --> 01:42:14,708
We don't really care that much about

1191
01:42:14,708 --> 01:42:17,125
wandering albatrosses. And so that will

1192
01:42:17,125 --> 01:42:18,791
be part of a discussion that happens at

1193
01:42:18,791 --> 01:42:21,208
the ISA. If if these

1194
01:42:21,208 --> 01:42:23,250
recommendations get presented there.

1195
01:42:24,000 --> 01:42:27,000
Interesting. When I did a lot of work

1196
01:42:27,000 --> 01:42:29,750
when I was at school, my master's

1197
01:42:29,750 --> 01:42:31,583
actually on looking at, you know, marine

1198
01:42:31,583 --> 01:42:32,833
protected areas and on the discussion

1199
01:42:32,833 --> 01:42:35,291
itself. And we looked at macro

1200
01:42:35,291 --> 01:42:37,166
invertebrates like the like, you know,

1201
01:42:37,375 --> 01:42:40,666
big macro invertebrates and looking at,

1202
01:42:40,666 --> 01:42:40,791
you know, where they were.

1203
01:42:40,791 --> 01:42:42,958
So we're looking at like what was

1204
01:42:42,958 --> 01:42:45,250
expected to see there. And if there were

1205
01:42:45,250 --> 01:42:46,708
assemblages around there, we call them

1206
01:42:46,708 --> 01:42:48,458
like the representative areas of like,

1207
01:42:48,458 --> 01:42:50,375
what dominated what what species

1208
01:42:50,375 --> 01:42:52,000
dominated community, what was the makeup

1209
01:42:52,000 --> 01:42:53,875
was a different from others and so forth.

1210
01:42:54,250 --> 01:42:56,750
And of course, a commercial fish study

1211
01:42:56,750 --> 01:42:58,916
was done as well. But then we never like

1212
01:42:58,916 --> 01:43:00,666
the other side of it was like the

1213
01:43:00,666 --> 01:43:02,500
distinct areas and the distinct species

1214
01:43:02,500 --> 01:43:04,291
like the migratory species where they

1215
01:43:04,291 --> 01:43:06,833
come where they go like upwellings and so

1216
01:43:06,833 --> 01:43:08,375
forth and like nursery areas

1217
01:43:08,375 --> 01:43:08,791
and spawning sites and so forth.

1218
01:43:08,833 --> 01:43:12,000
But they were the migratory species were

1219
01:43:12,000 --> 01:43:14,375
the hardest because it's like, how do you

1220
01:43:14,375 --> 01:43:17,250
protect migratory species when things

1221
01:43:17,250 --> 01:43:20,166
move and their foods, their prey moves,

1222
01:43:20,750 --> 01:43:23,250
their habitats move because they're done

1223
01:43:23,250 --> 01:43:24,125
by like these large

1224
01:43:24,125 --> 01:43:26,000
processes that move with currents.

1225
01:43:26,000 --> 01:43:27,541
And now we talked earlier about climate

1226
01:43:27,541 --> 01:43:29,666
change that will move and everything like

1227
01:43:29,666 --> 01:43:32,208
that. Is it more difficult to protect

1228
01:43:32,208 --> 01:43:34,666
these species? Because like, or these

1229
01:43:34,666 --> 01:43:36,083
types of species, as you mentioned, like

1230
01:43:36,083 --> 01:43:37,791
we don't even know which species specifically they are.

1231
01:43:37,833 --> 01:43:40,458
We're talking about, I'm sure we can come

1232
01:43:40,458 --> 01:43:44,041
up with a list. But is it more is it

1233
01:43:44,041 --> 01:43:45,750
complicated because these are migratory

1234
01:43:45,750 --> 01:43:47,958
species and not just like say the benthic

1235
01:43:47,958 --> 01:43:49,833
species that would be found directly

1236
01:43:49,833 --> 01:43:52,583
underneath the site where they're or in

1237
01:43:52,583 --> 01:43:53,791
the site that they're they're exploring?

1238
01:43:53,833 --> 01:43:57,208
Absolutely. And part of the problem is

1239
01:43:57,208 --> 01:43:59,875
because they're migratory, you know,

1240
01:43:59,875 --> 01:44:02,041
there's a seasonality to that, right? So

1241
01:44:02,041 --> 01:44:06,916
if you are, you know, doing a proper high

1242
01:44:06,916 --> 01:44:09,250
endurance environmental campaign to

1243
01:44:09,250 --> 01:44:11,458
really characterize the impacts of a

1244
01:44:11,458 --> 01:44:14,791
mining company, you know, you could be

1245
01:44:14,791 --> 01:44:16,250
talking about a research cruise that

1246
01:44:16,250 --> 01:44:18,166
takes three months, like three months is

1247
01:44:18,166 --> 01:44:18,791
a long research cruise.

1248
01:44:18,791 --> 01:44:20,000
Yeah.

1249
01:44:21,333 --> 01:44:22,791
If you do that research cruise in the

1250
01:44:22,791 --> 01:44:25,166
summer and humpback whales migrate

1251
01:44:25,166 --> 01:44:26,458
through the area in the winter, you're

1252
01:44:26,458 --> 01:44:27,583
just never going to see them. And you'll

1253
01:44:27,583 --> 01:44:30,583
never quantify that at all. So you have

1254
01:44:30,583 --> 01:44:31,875
to cross reference with like known

1255
01:44:31,875 --> 01:44:33,666
migration patterns and things like that.

1256
01:44:33,958 --> 01:44:35,041
And very specifically

1257
01:44:35,041 --> 01:44:35,791
think about that kind of thing.

1258
01:44:35,791 --> 01:44:38,375
And that, you know, that gets to another

1259
01:44:38,375 --> 01:44:41,041
problem. Like if noise is driving, say,

1260
01:44:41,458 --> 01:44:43,541
beat whales away from the CCZ, but you

1261
01:44:43,541 --> 01:44:45,208
never observed beat whales because

1262
01:44:45,208 --> 01:44:46,666
they're only there in October and you

1263
01:44:46,666 --> 01:44:49,000
only sample in August.

1264
01:44:50,500 --> 01:44:51,750
You don't know that you've driven them

1265
01:44:51,750 --> 01:44:53,708
away because you just never see them.

1266
01:44:54,458 --> 01:44:57,250
Yeah. And so, yeah, it does get very,

1267
01:44:57,250 --> 01:44:58,625
very challenging. You know, beat whales

1268
01:44:58,625 --> 01:45:00,250
are a great example. Beat whales probably

1269
01:45:00,250 --> 01:45:01,791
make up a quarter of all whale species.

1270
01:45:02,791 --> 01:45:05,916
And we've identified very few of them. We

1271
01:45:05,916 --> 01:45:07,833
know precious little about the behavior

1272
01:45:07,833 --> 01:45:09,583
and ecology of beach whales. So one of

1273
01:45:09,583 --> 01:45:12,041
the most understudied whales in the world

1274
01:45:12,041 --> 01:45:14,208
and they are one of the most abundant

1275
01:45:14,208 --> 01:45:15,541
groups of whales in the ocean.

1276
01:45:16,833 --> 01:45:20,000
So it is very hard to get information,

1277
01:45:20,000 --> 01:45:21,166
even though these are the big animals.

1278
01:45:21,750 --> 01:45:23,083
These are the most of them are the big

1279
01:45:23,083 --> 01:45:25,166
animals. Some of them are tiny. But these

1280
01:45:25,166 --> 01:45:26,333
are the big animals. And even with the

1281
01:45:26,333 --> 01:45:27,708
big animals, it's very hard to get that

1282
01:45:27,708 --> 01:45:29,583
kind of information because they're so

1283
01:45:29,583 --> 01:45:30,458
mobile, because they're

1284
01:45:30,458 --> 01:45:31,500
moving around so much.

1285
01:45:32,541 --> 01:45:33,958
And because we're operating and talking

1286
01:45:33,958 --> 01:45:35,875
about areas of the high seas where, you

1287
01:45:35,875 --> 01:45:37,250
know, the high seas in general does not

1288
01:45:37,250 --> 01:45:38,833
get studied as much as coastal waters

1289
01:45:38,833 --> 01:45:41,250
just because, you know, people live on

1290
01:45:41,250 --> 01:45:42,791
land. Yeah, no, absolutely.

1291
01:45:42,833 --> 01:45:46,416
And that's an interesting thing. You

1292
01:45:46,416 --> 01:45:48,250
know, we're looking at the high seas. The

1293
01:45:48,250 --> 01:45:50,416
high seas treaty has actually been

1294
01:45:50,416 --> 01:45:52,916
ratified as of this year, which is

1295
01:45:52,916 --> 01:45:54,500
basically beyond national jurisdiction.

1296
01:45:55,166 --> 01:45:56,875
Unreal. With that said.

1297
01:45:57,125 --> 01:45:58,916
It entered into force, ratified by 60

1298
01:45:58,916 --> 01:46:01,250
countries. 60 countries and probably more

1299
01:46:01,250 --> 01:46:04,666
after this, I assume. Yes. Now, that's

1300
01:46:04,666 --> 01:46:05,958
going to be... Notably not the United

1301
01:46:05,958 --> 01:46:09,250
States. No, not yet. Not yet. No. We

1302
01:46:09,250 --> 01:46:09,958
signed it. We haven't

1303
01:46:09,958 --> 01:46:11,708
ratified it. Just like on class.

1304
01:46:11,791 --> 01:46:14,125
How is that going to do you think that's

1305
01:46:14,125 --> 01:46:15,958
that's obviously going to play a role in

1306
01:46:15,958 --> 01:46:19,083
the future of of DC mining and looking at

1307
01:46:19,083 --> 01:46:21,125
the high seas and managing the high seas?

1308
01:46:22,500 --> 01:46:25,208
Where where do you see that? I know it's

1309
01:46:25,208 --> 01:46:26,666
kind of like a prediction question, but

1310
01:46:26,666 --> 01:46:29,625
where do you see that policy coming in

1311
01:46:29,625 --> 01:46:31,250
for deep sea mining or has there already

1312
01:46:31,250 --> 01:46:34,250
been like a clause within the treaty on

1313
01:46:34,250 --> 01:46:35,791
deep sea mining already?

1314
01:46:35,875 --> 01:46:41,833
I think where it lands is the creation of

1315
01:46:41,833 --> 01:46:45,666
a new kind of conflict. So, you know, at

1316
01:46:45,666 --> 01:46:47,541
its core, the biodiversity treaty

1317
01:46:47,541 --> 01:46:52,333
recognizes biodiversity as a resource as

1318
01:46:52,333 --> 01:46:54,166
a resource to be protected and exploited

1319
01:46:54,166 --> 01:46:54,791
just like a mineral resource.

1320
01:46:55,791 --> 01:46:58,416
That's a gross oversimplification of what

1321
01:46:58,416 --> 01:47:00,416
the treaty actually does, but it does

1322
01:47:00,416 --> 01:47:02,625
treat biodiversity itself as a resource.

1323
01:47:03,500 --> 01:47:06,916
And so once we start thinking about

1324
01:47:06,916 --> 01:47:09,708
biodiversity in the deep sea as something

1325
01:47:09,708 --> 01:47:11,500
to protect as a resource rather than

1326
01:47:11,500 --> 01:47:14,833
something to protect as a thing that we

1327
01:47:14,833 --> 01:47:15,791
love because biology is awesome.

1328
01:47:15,833 --> 01:47:19,916
I think that creates new conflicts

1329
01:47:19,916 --> 01:47:21,375
because it creates conflicts with people

1330
01:47:21,375 --> 01:47:24,750
who want you know, biodiversity has value

1331
01:47:24,750 --> 01:47:26,625
to ecosystems which can be quantified as

1332
01:47:26,625 --> 01:47:28,791
financial value and in some cases that

1333
01:47:28,791 --> 01:47:31,750
financial value of the environmental

1334
01:47:31,750 --> 01:47:35,333
value of keeping an ecosystem intact may

1335
01:47:35,333 --> 01:47:36,750
vastly exceed the value

1336
01:47:36,750 --> 01:47:37,791
of the minerals underneath.

1337
01:47:37,791 --> 01:47:41,083
You know, there's a pharmaceutical value

1338
01:47:41,083 --> 01:47:44,041
that's tied with biodiversity that I

1339
01:47:44,041 --> 01:47:46,166
don't like to get into because you know,

1340
01:47:46,166 --> 01:47:50,000
you know, bio prospecting is a tenuous

1341
01:47:50,000 --> 01:47:52,125
thing and a really fascinating and

1342
01:47:52,125 --> 01:47:54,208
interesting industry that doesn't always

1343
01:47:54,208 --> 01:47:56,041
function exactly the way we think it does

1344
01:47:56,041 --> 01:47:57,375
in terms of how discovery works.

1345
01:47:58,083 --> 01:47:59,875
But is, you know, it's important to

1346
01:47:59,875 --> 01:48:03,125
recognize that we do gain a lot from the

1347
01:48:03,125 --> 01:48:06,125
deep sea that is, you know, scientific

1348
01:48:06,125 --> 01:48:08,708
that is cultural, but it's also financial

1349
01:48:08,708 --> 01:48:10,750
and it's intangible financial. So it's

1350
01:48:10,750 --> 01:48:13,041
not something where you can say we picked

1351
01:48:13,041 --> 01:48:14,208
up eight ounces of cobalt

1352
01:48:14,208 --> 01:48:14,791
and it's worth X dollars.

1353
01:48:14,833 --> 01:48:17,375
It's something where you can say we

1354
01:48:17,375 --> 01:48:19,750
gained this new insight into how a

1355
01:48:19,750 --> 01:48:21,791
certain protein can function at high

1356
01:48:21,791 --> 01:48:24,833
temperatures and now we have PCR and have

1357
01:48:24,833 --> 01:48:26,791
revolutionized the $30 trillion medical

1358
01:48:26,791 --> 01:48:29,875
industry. Yeah, so it's a very

1359
01:48:29,875 --> 01:48:31,791
difficult way to quantify it.

1360
01:48:31,833 --> 01:48:33,458
But I think one of the things that the

1361
01:48:33,458 --> 01:48:35,333
high sea treaty does really well is get

1362
01:48:35,333 --> 01:48:38,333
us to think in terms of what that value

1363
01:48:38,333 --> 01:48:41,500
really means to us beyond just the

1364
01:48:41,500 --> 01:48:44,166
material value of the animals or the

1365
01:48:44,166 --> 01:48:47,083
minerals. Interesting.

1366
01:48:48,708 --> 01:48:51,708
Where do we go from here? Like we've the

1367
01:48:51,708 --> 01:48:53,833
study has been done. There's obviously

1368
01:48:53,833 --> 01:48:55,916
there's a lot of gaps that need to be

1369
01:48:55,916 --> 01:48:58,625
filled. What are the what's the next step

1370
01:48:58,625 --> 01:49:01,250
when we look at deep sea mining and we

1371
01:49:01,250 --> 01:49:02,666
look at migratory species?

1372
01:49:04,000 --> 01:49:05,791
We're gonna need a boat.

1373
01:49:06,791 --> 01:49:08,375
A big boat.

1374
01:49:09,000 --> 01:49:10,666
No, I mean the next the next step is a

1375
01:49:10,666 --> 01:49:11,791
knowledge gap study. This is

1376
01:49:11,791 --> 01:49:13,125
understanding where the gaps in our

1377
01:49:13,125 --> 01:49:15,583
knowledge are. You know, I want to know

1378
01:49:15,583 --> 01:49:18,458
how sound is going to impact migratory

1379
01:49:18,458 --> 01:49:20,833
marine species, especially whales. So,

1380
01:49:21,000 --> 01:49:22,500
you know, we need to figure out ways to

1381
01:49:22,500 --> 01:49:24,416
do proxy studies like obviously we can't

1382
01:49:24,416 --> 01:49:26,708
just like annoy whales for

1383
01:49:26,708 --> 01:49:27,791
two years and see what happens.

1384
01:49:28,791 --> 01:49:31,458
But we have to find we had to find places

1385
01:49:31,458 --> 01:49:34,000
where we can, you know, as prox use as

1386
01:49:34,000 --> 01:49:36,375
proxies examples from my offshore

1387
01:49:36,375 --> 01:49:38,041
dredging offshore drilling and see if we

1388
01:49:38,041 --> 01:49:39,333
can't get a little bit

1389
01:49:39,333 --> 01:49:40,875
more clarity on that.

1390
01:49:41,291 --> 01:49:42,416
You know, for some of the big target

1391
01:49:42,416 --> 01:49:45,041
things like some of it is going to be

1392
01:49:45,041 --> 01:49:46,916
working with mining companies because

1393
01:49:46,916 --> 01:49:48,333
they're the ones operating out there and

1394
01:49:48,333 --> 01:49:50,666
having observers on their boats and

1395
01:49:50,666 --> 01:49:51,833
documenting and putting

1396
01:49:51,833 --> 01:49:52,791
out acoustic moorings.

1397
01:49:53,791 --> 01:49:55,500
You know, there's a lot of its research.

1398
01:49:55,750 --> 01:49:57,625
This is, you know, one of the fun things

1399
01:49:57,625 --> 01:49:59,833
about this project is just imagining all

1400
01:49:59,833 --> 01:50:01,250
the different kinds of research projects

1401
01:50:01,250 --> 01:50:03,750
you can do based on the sort of

1402
01:50:03,750 --> 01:50:05,375
identified knowledge gaps here.

1403
01:50:05,958 --> 01:50:07,708
I want to be going around as many diffuse

1404
01:50:07,708 --> 01:50:09,666
flow hydro some event sites as I can and

1405
01:50:09,666 --> 01:50:12,041
seeing, you know, who's using what is a

1406
01:50:12,041 --> 01:50:13,875
nursery ground. That's such a wild thing

1407
01:50:13,875 --> 01:50:15,166
that we weren't looking for before.

1408
01:50:15,791 --> 01:50:17,666
And now that we know what to look for

1409
01:50:17,666 --> 01:50:19,458
just being like, okay, how

1410
01:50:19,458 --> 01:50:20,791
common is this phenomenon?

1411
01:50:21,791 --> 01:50:25,541
It's a it's a an interesting perspective,

1412
01:50:25,541 --> 01:50:28,708
like to look at all this stuff. I mean,

1413
01:50:28,708 --> 01:50:31,958
I'm sure there are a lot of graduate

1414
01:50:31,958 --> 01:50:34,458
studies that can happen from this and

1415
01:50:34,458 --> 01:50:35,791
fund a lot of a lot of projects.

1416
01:50:36,791 --> 01:50:39,416
And it's going to be have to be like, I

1417
01:50:39,416 --> 01:50:40,916
assume a lot of the deep sea mining

1418
01:50:40,916 --> 01:50:42,500
companies are going to have to foot the

1419
01:50:42,500 --> 01:50:44,166
bill for this type of work

1420
01:50:44,166 --> 01:50:46,583
to kind of like fill that.

1421
01:50:46,583 --> 01:50:48,416
Yeah, you know, the nice thing about this

1422
01:50:48,416 --> 01:50:49,833
kind of work is that it's

1423
01:50:49,833 --> 01:50:51,250
not the expensive stuff.

1424
01:50:52,083 --> 01:50:53,750
You know, the expensive stuff is giant

1425
01:50:53,750 --> 01:50:56,000
robots on the sea floor. Right. You know,

1426
01:50:56,208 --> 01:50:57,958
having an observer on your boat that can

1427
01:50:57,958 --> 01:51:01,333
identify birds is yeah, is, you know, a

1428
01:51:01,333 --> 01:51:02,708
rounding error in your

1429
01:51:02,708 --> 01:51:03,791
daily operating budget.

1430
01:51:03,833 --> 01:51:06,833
Right. Like, you know, putting out

1431
01:51:06,833 --> 01:51:09,416
acoustic moorings to look listen for

1432
01:51:09,416 --> 01:51:11,666
marine mammals is, you know, they're

1433
01:51:11,666 --> 01:51:13,250
already putting out more moorings to look

1434
01:51:13,250 --> 01:51:15,708
for other other oceanographic conditions.

1435
01:51:15,708 --> 01:51:17,416
They can add acoustic mornings to those

1436
01:51:17,416 --> 01:51:20,166
like, yeah, in terms of recommendations

1437
01:51:20,166 --> 01:51:22,250
that are not particularly expensive for

1438
01:51:22,250 --> 01:51:23,458
the amount of science you get out of

1439
01:51:23,458 --> 01:51:25,625
them. Like, you know, the beauty of a

1440
01:51:25,625 --> 01:51:26,791
whale is you don't need a microscope.

1441
01:51:27,791 --> 01:51:34,541
That is true. That is true. And yet, you

1442
01:51:34,541 --> 01:51:37,666
know, with the the advent of like drones

1443
01:51:37,666 --> 01:51:39,500
and stuff like that, you can go a lot

1444
01:51:39,500 --> 01:51:42,333
further out from your boat, you know, in

1445
01:51:42,333 --> 01:51:44,416
terms of sightings, not just binoculars,

1446
01:51:44,416 --> 01:51:45,875
a pair of binoculars and somebody there,

1447
01:51:45,875 --> 01:51:48,500
you can actually go above and beyond and

1448
01:51:48,500 --> 01:51:48,791
see, see where they they are.

1449
01:51:48,791 --> 01:51:52,666
And they're there, you know, where they

1450
01:51:52,666 --> 01:51:54,125
tend to go, where they if they're

1451
01:51:54,125 --> 01:51:56,541
avoiding or not and check those patterns.

1452
01:51:56,958 --> 01:51:58,916
So we're a helicopter, as we talked about

1453
01:51:58,916 --> 01:52:00,958
earlier. Yeah, we both love helicopters.

1454
01:52:03,791 --> 01:52:06,250
We'll be on the boat. We'll be on the

1455
01:52:06,250 --> 01:52:07,916
boat watching the helicopters like, yeah,

1456
01:52:07,916 --> 01:52:09,166
you're right over there over there.

1457
01:52:09,166 --> 01:52:11,666
That's good. That's cool. It's like, is

1458
01:52:11,666 --> 01:52:13,833
this like so if you know, there's a

1459
01:52:13,833 --> 01:52:15,791
there's a lot of researchers that want to

1460
01:52:15,791 --> 01:52:16,791
to participate in this type of work.

1461
01:52:16,833 --> 01:52:21,083
We'd love to, to, I mean, myself

1462
01:52:21,083 --> 01:52:24,875
included, we'd love to do that. You know,

1463
01:52:24,875 --> 01:52:26,666
what would is this like an advent of like

1464
01:52:26,666 --> 01:52:29,375
a new conglomerate of studies, do you

1465
01:52:29,375 --> 01:52:31,500
think like where, like, if you're looking

1466
01:52:31,500 --> 01:52:32,458
at somebody who's trying to get into

1467
01:52:32,458 --> 01:52:34,541
graduate work, and they want to start to

1468
01:52:34,541 --> 01:52:36,458
look at this kind of stuff, where do you

1469
01:52:36,458 --> 01:52:37,708
think where's the start? I mean, it's

1470
01:52:37,708 --> 01:52:39,458
such a broad topic, and there's so many

1471
01:52:39,458 --> 01:52:41,041
species and so forth. But where would you

1472
01:52:41,041 --> 01:52:42,791
recommend people begin to look into this kind of stuff?

1473
01:52:42,833 --> 01:52:46,666
So, you know, the things that are coming

1474
01:52:46,666 --> 01:52:47,875
down the pipeline, if you're in the

1475
01:52:47,875 --> 01:52:50,708
United States, there's going to be, you

1476
01:52:50,708 --> 01:52:52,708
know, science investment right now is at

1477
01:52:52,708 --> 01:52:55,750
a historic low. Right. But there is going

1478
01:52:55,750 --> 01:52:57,500
to be investment in deep sea mining. And

1479
01:52:57,500 --> 01:52:58,916
so if you're interested in understanding

1480
01:52:58,916 --> 01:53:00,291
the environmental impacts of deep sea

1481
01:53:00,291 --> 01:53:02,208
mining, or if you're just interested in

1482
01:53:02,208 --> 01:53:03,875
studying these kinds of highly migratory

1483
01:53:03,875 --> 01:53:05,500
species in the ocean deep sea mining is

1484
01:53:05,500 --> 01:53:05,791
not a bad hook to get yourself in the door.

1485
01:53:06,041 --> 01:53:08,166
Yeah.

1486
01:53:09,500 --> 01:53:12,041
In terms of funding. I don't know what

1487
01:53:12,041 --> 01:53:13,625
the funding calls will look like coming

1488
01:53:13,625 --> 01:53:15,541
out of this because I don't, I don't know

1489
01:53:15,541 --> 01:53:17,916
what the CMS process is coming out of

1490
01:53:17,916 --> 01:53:20,791
this, I would suspect that there will be,

1491
01:53:20,791 --> 01:53:21,750
you know, different countries will set different priority areas and some of them will include these.

1492
01:53:22,166 --> 01:53:29,250
So keeping an eye out for that. You know,

1493
01:53:29,250 --> 01:53:31,000
the reality is, I'm still a deep sea

1494
01:53:31,000 --> 01:53:32,541
ecologist that works at hydrothermal

1495
01:53:32,541 --> 01:53:35,083
vents and loves to look at snails. And so

1496
01:53:35,083 --> 01:53:37,458
like, you know, I don't foresee myself

1497
01:53:37,458 --> 01:53:39,458
being super involved in a lot of the

1498
01:53:39,458 --> 01:53:41,291
downstream studies, but I am actually

1499
01:53:41,291 --> 01:53:44,416
absolutely, you know, a social node that

1500
01:53:44,416 --> 01:53:46,000
loves connecting people to other people.

1501
01:53:46,375 --> 01:53:48,583
So I'm happy to work with researchers to

1502
01:53:48,583 --> 01:53:49,791
figure out who's doing what. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'd be really interesting to see how you're doing.

1503
01:53:49,833 --> 01:53:51,666
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'd be really

1504
01:53:51,666 --> 01:53:52,875
interesting to see what people come up

1505
01:53:52,875 --> 01:53:56,083
with. You know, obviously it's, you know,

1506
01:53:56,083 --> 01:53:57,833
catapulting from this from this study

1507
01:53:57,833 --> 01:54:00,333
will be will be huge. We have to find out

1508
01:54:00,333 --> 01:54:04,416
as much as possible before DC mining, you

1509
01:54:04,416 --> 01:54:07,666
know, gets underway a lot faster and a

1510
01:54:07,666 --> 01:54:08,916
lot more consistently than

1511
01:54:08,916 --> 01:54:10,791
than it has been in the future.

1512
01:54:10,833 --> 01:54:15,041
When you know, there are a couple of I

1513
01:54:15,041 --> 01:54:17,750
know it's not really the topic per se,

1514
01:54:17,750 --> 01:54:20,791
but there are a couple of projects that

1515
01:54:20,791 --> 01:54:22,958
are going on right now that are being

1516
01:54:22,958 --> 01:54:26,500
proposed in US territories. Yeah, is one

1517
01:54:26,500 --> 01:54:28,791
of them. I believe Samoa is the other.

1518
01:54:28,833 --> 01:54:32,083
So there have been Boaam, which is the

1519
01:54:32,083 --> 01:54:33,708
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has

1520
01:54:33,708 --> 01:54:36,625
issued two RFIs in the last several

1521
01:54:36,625 --> 01:54:41,125
months. So request for information about

1522
01:54:41,125 --> 01:54:44,708
resources and interest in areas off of

1523
01:54:44,708 --> 01:54:47,208
American Samoa and areas off of the

1524
01:54:47,208 --> 01:54:48,541
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana

1525
01:54:48,791 --> 01:54:51,416
Islands. The American Samoa one has

1526
01:54:51,416 --> 01:54:52,750
closed, they received something like

1527
01:54:52,750 --> 01:54:56,250
76,000 comments, most of which were very

1528
01:54:56,250 --> 01:54:59,291
negative. Right. But a lot of them coming

1529
01:54:59,291 --> 01:55:02,375
from people in American Samoa. Yeah, so

1530
01:55:02,375 --> 01:55:04,000
you know, the folks who live out there

1531
01:55:04,000 --> 01:55:06,000
and, you know, generally speaking, like

1532
01:55:06,000 --> 01:55:07,750
my highest priority when looking at

1533
01:55:07,750 --> 01:55:10,541
potential deep sea mining is do the

1534
01:55:10,541 --> 01:55:12,500
people most directly impacted by it do

1535
01:55:12,500 --> 01:55:15,458
the people who live nearby are the actual

1536
01:55:15,458 --> 01:55:16,666
indigenous stakeholders on

1537
01:55:16,666 --> 01:55:17,791
board or are they opposed?

1538
01:55:17,833 --> 01:55:19,833
That's like, yeah, that's the make or

1539
01:55:19,833 --> 01:55:22,208
break for any of these. You know, that

1540
01:55:22,208 --> 01:55:24,208
can happen like the Cook Islands has been

1541
01:55:24,208 --> 01:55:25,666
interested in looking at deep sea mining.

1542
01:55:25,666 --> 01:55:27,750
If the Cook Islanders decide they want to

1543
01:55:27,750 --> 01:55:29,375
mine their own waters, I have, you know,

1544
01:55:29,375 --> 01:55:30,916
I have nothing bad to say about that, you

1545
01:55:30,916 --> 01:55:33,666
know, indigenous sovereignty is in

1546
01:55:33,666 --> 01:55:35,416
absolute in things like that.

1547
01:55:35,833 --> 01:55:37,583
At the moment, the people of American

1548
01:55:37,583 --> 01:55:39,458
Samoa sure don't seem like they want to

1549
01:55:39,458 --> 01:55:41,333
see deep sea mining off the coasts. And

1550
01:55:41,333 --> 01:55:43,666
you will see from the current RFI how the

1551
01:55:43,666 --> 01:55:45,208
people of the Commonwealth of Northern

1552
01:55:45,208 --> 01:55:48,666
Mariana Islands feel to but that one's a

1553
01:55:48,666 --> 01:55:50,500
strange one because there's not

1554
01:55:50,500 --> 01:55:52,541
particularly valuable or deposits in the

1555
01:55:52,541 --> 01:55:53,708
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana

1556
01:55:53,791 --> 01:55:56,000
Islands. There's there's some but there's

1557
01:55:56,000 --> 01:55:57,916
not a ton. And it's also the Mariana

1558
01:55:57,916 --> 01:56:00,750
Trench. So it's, you know, from a

1559
01:56:00,750 --> 01:56:02,625
political standpoint, like if I were a

1560
01:56:02,625 --> 01:56:04,208
mining company, the last thing I'd want

1561
01:56:04,208 --> 01:56:06,750
to want to be is be associated with

1562
01:56:06,750 --> 01:56:09,041
mining the only deep sea feature in the

1563
01:56:09,041 --> 01:56:11,583
world that everyone can recognize, right?

1564
01:56:11,791 --> 01:56:13,833
You do not want to be the guy that mind

1565
01:56:13,833 --> 01:56:15,583
the Mariana Trench, like that's just

1566
01:56:15,583 --> 01:56:18,375
especially for not particularly valuable

1567
01:56:18,375 --> 01:56:20,750
or deposits. That's just not like from a

1568
01:56:20,750 --> 01:56:21,916
PR standpoint, that's just

1569
01:56:21,916 --> 01:56:23,583
seems like a bad move. Yeah.

1570
01:56:24,708 --> 01:56:26,125
So you're surprised at this.

1571
01:56:27,083 --> 01:56:28,583
I'm surprised the RFI went out and

1572
01:56:28,583 --> 01:56:30,750
apparently no one requested it. So it

1573
01:56:30,750 --> 01:56:32,708
seems like boom is just trying to assess

1574
01:56:32,708 --> 01:56:35,291
all of its resources for potential future

1575
01:56:35,291 --> 01:56:37,750
lease sales. Now as of this recording

1576
01:56:37,750 --> 01:56:39,791
that comment period is still open.

1577
01:56:40,000 --> 01:56:41,791
Anybody comment or is it just more of the people of the cinema?

1578
01:56:41,791 --> 01:56:48,375
Anyone can comment us citizens generally

1579
01:56:48,375 --> 01:56:50,375
unless you have specific expertise. So

1580
01:56:50,375 --> 01:56:51,666
I'm working with a group of international

1581
01:56:51,666 --> 01:56:54,083
scientists to put in a comment from the

1582
01:56:54,083 --> 01:56:56,666
international community because they have

1583
01:56:56,666 --> 01:56:58,958
particular expertise in that area. But

1584
01:56:58,958 --> 01:57:00,833
generally speaking, anyone is allowed to

1585
01:57:00,833 --> 01:57:03,333
comment. They really want to hear from us

1586
01:57:03,333 --> 01:57:05,208
citizens and the people of the

1587
01:57:05,208 --> 01:57:06,375
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana

1588
01:57:06,375 --> 01:57:07,791
Islands are also US citizens, of course, of course. Yeah, yeah.

1589
01:57:07,833 --> 01:57:11,750
One of the many territories of the Empire

1590
01:57:11,750 --> 01:57:14,208
continues to hold. Yeah, interesting.

1591
01:57:14,791 --> 01:57:17,041
Okay. Well, thank you so much. We'll put

1592
01:57:17,041 --> 01:57:19,666
links down so that people can get access

1593
01:57:19,666 --> 01:57:20,916
to those comments as long as they're

1594
01:57:20,916 --> 01:57:23,250
open. And you can highly recommend that

1595
01:57:23,250 --> 01:57:26,000
if you are qualified to put out a

1596
01:57:26,000 --> 01:57:27,791
comment, please do. It's really important

1597
01:57:27,791 --> 01:57:29,458
that you get your say in, especially if

1598
01:57:29,458 --> 01:57:31,666
you're listening here from the CNMI or

1599
01:57:31,666 --> 01:57:33,541
from American Samoa. It's always good to

1600
01:57:33,541 --> 01:57:36,000
hear, you know, in your own backyard.

1601
01:57:36,250 --> 01:57:37,666
It's happening in your own backyard. So

1602
01:57:37,666 --> 01:57:37,791
I'm happy to have you here.

1603
01:57:38,166 --> 01:57:40,083
But yeah, thank you, Andrew. This has

1604
01:57:40,083 --> 01:57:41,833
been amazing. As usual, this is always

1605
01:57:41,833 --> 01:57:44,625
fun to have you on the podcast and you

1606
01:57:44,625 --> 01:57:46,000
always bring so much information. We

1607
01:57:46,000 --> 01:57:47,791
really appreciate such an important topic

1608
01:57:47,791 --> 01:57:50,000
to so we really appreciate you coming on

1609
01:57:50,000 --> 01:57:51,875
the podcast and sharing this with us.

1610
01:57:52,333 --> 01:57:53,708
Thank you very much. It's always a

1611
01:57:53,708 --> 01:57:55,875
pleasure to be on here. You bet one more

1612
01:57:55,875 --> 01:57:58,250
thing if people want to get to know you a

1613
01:57:58,250 --> 01:57:59,958
little bit more and connect with you.

1614
01:57:59,958 --> 01:58:02,000
There's Southern fried science calm, but

1615
01:58:02,000 --> 01:58:04,416
where else can people can go to learn

1616
01:58:04,416 --> 01:58:05,291
more budget projects?

1617
01:58:05,833 --> 01:58:07,666
I exist on Southern fried science and I

1618
01:58:07,666 --> 01:58:10,583
exist on blue sky at Dr. Andrew Taylor.

1619
01:58:10,583 --> 01:58:12,666
Awesome. And I know you won't do this,

1620
01:58:12,666 --> 01:58:14,875
but I'm going to do this for you. Please

1621
01:58:14,875 --> 01:58:18,500
support Andrew on Patreon. He's he's up

1622
01:58:18,500 --> 01:58:20,833
to so many different things, things that

1623
01:58:20,833 --> 01:58:23,250
are not traditionally funded or not

1624
01:58:23,250 --> 01:58:24,666
traditionally paid for by the things but

1625
01:58:24,666 --> 01:58:27,250
such an important things like creating

1626
01:58:27,250 --> 01:58:31,541
the open CTD line of products, doing, you

1627
01:58:31,541 --> 01:58:33,458
know, D&D with with people

1628
01:58:33,458 --> 01:58:35,791
in his own town and kids and

1629
01:58:35,791 --> 01:58:38,000
stuff on forestry. We're talking about

1630
01:58:38,000 --> 01:58:41,583
being on a climate change commission, you

1631
01:58:41,583 --> 01:58:43,916
know, in his own town, doing the I forget

1632
01:58:43,916 --> 01:58:46,500
the name of it. What's the the the tide

1633
01:58:46,500 --> 01:58:48,333
gauge that you put in the smart buoy, the

1634
01:58:48,333 --> 01:58:50,541
same Michael Smart buoy, Smart buoy like

1635
01:58:50,541 --> 01:58:53,125
Andrew is up to so many different things.

1636
01:58:53,625 --> 01:58:56,875
Innovative, very technology focused, very

1637
01:58:56,875 --> 01:58:59,500
important, always on the right side of

1638
01:58:59,500 --> 01:59:00,833
history. I highly recommend I'm going to

1639
01:59:00,833 --> 01:59:02,041
put the link in there if you don't mind,

1640
01:59:02,041 --> 01:59:04,083
Andrew, so that people can go and support

1641
01:59:04,083 --> 01:59:05,666
them if they choose and are able to.

1642
01:59:05,791 --> 01:59:08,000
I really recommend that you do again,

1643
01:59:08,000 --> 01:59:09,125
Andrew. Thank you so much for coming on

1644
01:59:09,125 --> 01:59:11,000
the podcast. Really appreciate it. You're

1645
01:59:11,000 --> 01:59:13,041
very welcome. Happy to come back anytime.

1646
01:59:13,041 --> 01:59:14,791
Thank you, Andrew, for joining us again

1647
01:59:14,791 --> 01:59:16,541
here on the how to protect the ocean

1648
01:59:16,541 --> 01:59:18,291
podcast. It was great to have you on as

1649
01:59:18,291 --> 01:59:20,166
usual. And I can't wait to have you back

1650
01:59:20,166 --> 01:59:22,166
on to talk about all the other projects,

1651
01:59:22,166 --> 01:59:23,833
especially deep sea mining that you are

1652
01:59:23,833 --> 01:59:25,750
focused on. It's always great to be able

1653
01:59:25,750 --> 01:59:27,500
to share this information, especially

1654
01:59:27,500 --> 01:59:29,208
from an expert like yourself who's been

1655
01:59:29,208 --> 01:59:31,000
working on this for more than a decade.

1656
01:59:31,250 --> 01:59:32,416
And I think it's really important that we

1657
01:59:32,416 --> 01:59:34,375
talk about these issues. I'm going to put

1658
01:59:34,375 --> 01:59:35,166
links to the public

1659
01:59:35,166 --> 01:59:35,791
comment from the public comment.

1660
01:59:35,833 --> 01:59:42,333
I think it's still open and for those of

1661
01:59:42,333 --> 01:59:44,333
you who watch this after continue to come

1662
01:59:44,333 --> 01:59:46,250
back and watch these episodes because I'm

1663
01:59:46,250 --> 01:59:48,166
going to be doing more advocacy action

1664
01:59:48,166 --> 01:59:49,375
like if you want to put in a public

1665
01:59:49,375 --> 01:59:51,208
comment or if you want to contribute in

1666
01:59:51,208 --> 01:59:52,500
some kind of way, I'll have links to help

1667
01:59:52,500 --> 01:59:54,916
you to do that and offer you resources to

1668
01:59:54,916 --> 01:59:55,708
that because I think it's really

1669
01:59:55,708 --> 01:59:57,708
important in today's day that we are able

1670
01:59:57,708 --> 01:59:59,666
to advocate for the ocean, learn about

1671
01:59:59,666 --> 02:00:02,041
science and conservation and restoration

1672
02:00:02,041 --> 02:00:04,875
of ocean habitats like sea grasses, but

1673
02:00:04,875 --> 02:00:05,791
also just like a public comment.

1674
02:00:05,833 --> 02:00:08,208
And I think that's really important to

1675
02:00:08,208 --> 02:00:10,000
the people that live around these areas

1676
02:00:10,000 --> 02:00:11,666
where they don't want this to happen. So

1677
02:00:11,666 --> 02:00:13,500
always great to be able to talk to Andrew

1678
02:00:13,500 --> 02:00:15,958
always great to be able to provide this

1679
02:00:15,958 --> 02:00:18,500
information from Andrew directly to you

1680
02:00:18,500 --> 02:00:19,416
through our conversations.

1681
02:00:19,791 --> 02:00:20,583
And I think that's the whole point of the

1682
02:00:20,583 --> 02:00:22,458
podcast to provide a resource for people

1683
02:00:22,458 --> 02:00:24,958
who don't have that resource handy is

1684
02:00:24,958 --> 02:00:26,791
just freely accessible. It's all for you.

1685
02:00:27,041 --> 02:00:28,250
For those of you who want to donate to

1686
02:00:28,250 --> 02:00:29,958
help launch another podcast, you can go

1687
02:00:29,958 --> 02:00:31,583
speak up for blue.com forward slash

1688
02:00:31,583 --> 02:00:33,583
seagrass. But until then, I want to thank

1689
02:00:33,583 --> 02:00:35,416
you so much for joining me on today's

1690
02:00:35,416 --> 02:00:36,500
episode. Oh, by the way, if you want to

1691
02:00:36,500 --> 02:00:37,458
leave a comment, leave it

1692
02:00:37,458 --> 02:00:38,791
below in this YouTube video.

1693
02:00:38,833 --> 02:00:40,000
If you're listening to this on your

1694
02:00:40,000 --> 02:00:42,041
favorite podcast app like Apple, Spotify,

1695
02:00:42,333 --> 02:00:43,916
Amazon Music, whatever that might be,

1696
02:00:44,250 --> 02:00:46,166
please contact me at how to protect the

1697
02:00:46,166 --> 02:00:48,166
ocean on Instagram or go speak up for

1698
02:00:48,166 --> 02:00:49,291
blue.com forward slash

1699
02:00:49,291 --> 02:00:50,666
contact fill out the form.

1700
02:00:50,916 --> 02:00:52,625
It goes right to my email. I'd be more

1701
02:00:52,625 --> 02:00:54,250
than happy to answer it. Thank you so

1702
02:00:54,250 --> 02:00:55,916
much for joining us on today's episode of

1703
02:00:55,916 --> 02:00:57,416
the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm

1704
02:00:57,416 --> 02:00:59,208
your host, Andrew Lewin from the true

1705
02:00:59,208 --> 02:01:00,916
North strong and free. Have a great day.

1706
02:01:00,916 --> 02:01:01,583
We'll talk to you next

1707
02:01:01,583 --> 02:01:02,791
time and happy conservation.

How Deep Sea Mining Could Break the Ocean’s Most Important Wildlife Highways

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