Deep Sea Mining

This Issues Note outlines agreed-upon recommendations on deep-sea mining, given the insufficient data on its environmental impacts. UNEP is mandated to keep the environment under review and has been monitoring proposals for deep-seabed mining, both within and beyond national jurisdictions. While no commercial activities currently exist, several countries have signaled their intention to assess the environmental impacts of the activity in their national waters or apply to the International Seabed Authority for approval to extract minerals and metals from the deep-seabed. These include cobalt, copper, gold, lead, manganese, nickel, silver, zinc and other rare metals.