Researcher welcomes news on Solwara 1

By MOUA OMOA
NAUTILUS Minerals’ move to withhold the Solwara 1 project is good news for the people and the environment, National Research Institute Research fellow Nalau Bingeding said last Friday.
Bingeding said the department of environment and conservation, as the country’s environmental regulator, should now engage a consultant to do a proper research into the deep sea mining project.
“A lot of people in that area depend on the sea and the marine life for their livelihood and, therefore, it has to be scientifically proven that the project will not affect them,” he said.
“I haven’t sighted an environmental impact statement from Nautilus Minerals and I don’t know if it has been tho­roughly screened under the Environmental Act, if that was done, then scientists working on it will prove that it is worth it.”
Bingeding is concerned that if the project gets underway, the marine life and the way the people have used their marine environment will be affected.
“From a scientific view the digging up of the ocean floor for minerals is going to create a great impact,” he said.
“The ocean is acidic and this is likely to cause a chemical reaction that will defuse the ocean water column and kill the algae on the reefs leading to coral bleaching, which means the reefs turn white and they die.
“This has not happened anywhere in the world,” Bingeding said.
He said the government and mining companies must ensure that any project they undertook should be done in a social, economic and environmentally sustainable manner.
“We have 10 large scale mines and not one of them has improved or developed the lives of the people, they are still poor, so who is to say that deep sea mining will change anything?” he asked.