Swakopmund Matters Raise Concerns on Deep Sea Mining Offshore Namibia

Swakopmund Matters, an organization that started out last year, has a mission to inform public of the potential damage of the deep sea mining offshore Namibian coast.

The current projects that raise concerns of Swakopmund Matters and all Namibians are:

• The project of Namibia Marine Phosphate (NMP) is called Sandpiper Marine Phosphate Project (SMPP) and will focus on an area south of Walvis Bay. The Sandpiper project is driven by NMP but it only has a 15% share of the company. Two Australian companies (Minemakers & UCL) are the major shareholders with 85% shared equally amongst the two of them.

• The project of Gecko Namibia has this mining as the kingpin for its Vision Industrial Complex’s land based operations to be located in part of a national park north of Swakopmund.

• The project of New Zealand’s Chatham Rock Phosphates (CRP) is in its initial stage. This company has applied for several EPL’s. CRP has established a company, MANMAR INVESTMENTS ONE HUNDER SIX (Pty) Ltd., in Namibia, but its shareholding is not yet known.

• The project of LL Namibia Phosphates (Pty) Ltd wants to mine near Luderitz. It is a Windhoek based company of which limited details are available, except for the names of its CEO, one other director and the project manager.

Because of these projects, fishing industries, and both local and international marine experts, are especially critical and apprehensive. They are all alarmed about the negative effects that may be brought about by this marine activity.

During the 14 months campaign Swakopmund Matters issued several letters to government officials, and the companies that are developing the projects.

The organization tried to find answers to the issues which concern the public regarding the fishing industry and the environmental impact.

The fishing industry makes an important part of Namibian economies, with about N$ 5 billion (US$ 580 million) in foreign earnings through fisheries export receipts.

Regarding this matter, marine biologists also expressed their concerns: “Namibians must determine what is in their interest and not be forced to offer their marine life and healthy fishing industry on the high altar of foreign opportunism and the sweetener of foreign direct investment.”

Mrs. Bronwen Currie in a public lecture in Swakopmund in December 2011 discussed the “consequences of the proposed coastal industrial development to the marine environment”.

She stated: “Looking at the marine food chain, especially at the base, it is obvious that any imbalance in chemical substances can impact the whole ecosystem –initially affecting the growth and composition of the phytoplankton. Uptake of the wrong ratios of chemical building blocks could not only pass to the next food level but there could be increases in blooms and toxic species. Even very slightly contaminated seawater can affect small zooplankton – including larvae (babies) of fish and other animals such as oysters, to either kill them or result in abnormal or weak development. In the next link of the food chain where filter-feeding mussels, oysters and sardines directly eat the phytoplankton, they will concentrate unwanted substances such as heavy metals in their bodies. As one works up the food chain to larger fish (such as kabeljou) and predators such as hake, to top predators such as sharks, it is known that “bioaccumulation” of unwanted substances occurs and this could affect us humans as consumers –we are well aware that food-safety levels are imposed for human health reasons. Namibia is one of the few countries in the world that does not have its seafood products rejected on global markets because of pollution contamination.”

Marine biologists will substantiate the fact which must be clearly understood, namely that proposed seabed mining and dredging operations will not just impact the individual bottom-living fish species of a commercial value, but the entire intricate, interacting marine ecosystem of the oceanic realm concerned.

Swakopmund Matters also notes that during these projects the companies will have land base operations too.

They informed Ms. Carla Saayman of Enviro Dynamics (Consultants for NMP) that “The SMPP will cause as much disaster on land as it is bound to cause to the ocean. The production, storage and transportation by whatever means – including the impact of the proposed pipeline – on land will have grave consequences of which you are surely aware. If not, then either proper studies have not been conducted and released or separate EIA’s have not preceded each of these activities”.

The founder of the World Future Council and the Right Livelihood Award, Jakob von Uexkull, also expressed his concerns by stressing that marine phosphate mining was a short-term non-renewable activity and that “once the phosphate has been extracted, the jobs are gone”. In contrast, if fisheries are managed sustainably, as in Namibia, the food and job security they provide can last for many generations to come.

In conclusion of this matter, Swakopmund Matters in their report said: All the uncertainties about marine phosphate mining arise due to the lack of knowledge and experience about the technologies and processes under-pinning the mining system, the biodiversity and ecosystems of the deep ocean. What is certain is that many impacts will be associated with each step of the mining process.

Due to this high level of uncertainty, it is not possible to predict the precise and full impact of any individual, let alone the cumulative impacts of all four projects. This is of great concern.

In national waters the government may not have environmental regulatory systems specific to marine mining in place or even the capacity to enforce regulations and conduct independent monitoring and adequate and strict enforcement.

The geographic footprint of each individual seabed mining operation is likely to be large. The interactions between currents, weather and oceanic events will mean that the spread of pollution and impacts can neither be contained nor readily predicted. The high level of uncertainty and risk associated with individual projects will accumulate and compound in unknown ways as deep sea mining activity increases.

The Namibian Government will surely want to assess the cumulative effect on the marine environment and the fishing industry in particular if all four of the proposed seabed operations were to mine phosphate in Namibia’s coastal waters.

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Subsea World News Staff, November 22, 2012