SYDNEY, Wednesday 30 April 2025 — Ahead of the Federal Election, Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling on all parties to support a moratorium on deep sea mining, with news today that The Metals Company is forging ahead with plans to commercially mine the Pacific seabed following President Trump’s executive order greenlighting the harmful practice.
Controversial deep sea mining company The Metals Company (TMC) – headed by Australian CEO Gerard Barron – has overnight submitted the first-ever application to mine the Pacific Ocean seabed. Lauded on its website as a “world-first”, the company says minerals extracted from the deep, environmentally sensitive ocean floor would be used to support the green transition, but Trump’s executive order states they would also be used by the US for weapons manufacturing and infrastructure.
Last year, an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald exposed TMC’s links to former PM Scott Morrison and the AUKUS deal. Greenpeace says the move threatens Pacific sovereignty and is a power play in the United States’ national interest.
Glenn Walker, Head of Nature at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “The ocean is under attack from every angle, suffering from climate change, destructive industrial fishing, plastic pollution, and now the new threat of deep sea mining, driven by the Trump administration and billionaire elites seeking to profit from ocean destruction.
“Australians love the ocean and want to protect it. Now is the time for all Australian political parties, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, to set themselves apart from Trump and publicly and strongly support a moratorium on deep sea mining, and be a good neighbour to Pacific nations. Our leaders now have a choice: protect our blue planet, or sit idly by and allow Trump to undermine international law and plunder the ocean.”
The move by the US undermines international law and breaks the longstanding
tradition of it being a good-faith actor on UNCLOS (The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).
Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Juressa Lee said: “The Metals Company and Donald Trump are wilfully ignoring the rules-based international order and the science that deep sea mining will wreak havoc on the oceans.
“Pacific Peoples have deep cultural ties to the ocean, and it is the source of livelihoods for many. Our home is more ocean than land, and our ancestors were wayfarers who traversed the Pacific Ocean for centuries. Deep sea mining is not the answer to the green transition away from carbon-based fossil fuels.”
Currently, 32 countries have backed a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep sea mining, including Tuvalu, Palau, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Vanuatu and Samoa. Australia has not.
Australia will have a crucial chance to support a moratorium on deep sea mining at the UN Ocean Conference in June.
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