深海採礦無可避免地會造成未來生物多樣性減少

深海採礦無可避免地會造成未來生物多樣性減少

由15名海洋學家、資源經濟學者和法律學者組成的國際團隊，在今日刊登於期刊《自然―地質科學》(Nature Geoscience)的一篇通訊中主張深海採礦無可避免地會造成生物多樣性流失，且後果可能無法挽回。

國際海底管理局(ISA)是在聯合國海洋法之下負責管理公海地區海底採礦的組織。研究人員表示ISA必須要體認到深海採礦存在此種風險，並且將其清楚傳達給所屬會員國和社會大眾，以討論是否應該繼續進行深海採礦；若要繼續進行，那麼應該要實行那些規章和保護措施讓生物多樣性的損失最小化。

杜克大學環境學院的生物海洋學教授Cindy L. Van Dover表示：「深海礦業對生態的影響仍有很大的不確定性。必須依據可以保護深海生物多樣性的環境管理措施來達到『責任採礦』，而非採取未經證實或不合理的行為。」

歐洲海洋研究所海洋生態系機構的國際主席，同時也是杜克大學環境學院的兼任教授Linwood Pendleton表示：「開發不可再生資源總是會涉及到多種權衡得失。就深海採礦來說，一項重要的取捨點是生物多樣性必然會因此減少，包括許多尚未發現的物種在內。」

Pendleton說面臨此註定會發生的後果，重要的是在採礦永久改變海底之前更深入地瞭解深海生態系，以及清楚知道我們將要喪失的事物。Pendleton也是杜克大學尼古拉斯環境政策方案研究所，海洋與海岸政策計畫的高級研究員。

專家強調最重要的是時間。

墨西哥國立自治大學海洋科學與礦業研究所的Elva Escobar表示：「雖然海底的金屬和稀土元素沉積物尚未被開發，但開礦合約的申請已經有趨於增加的現象。2001年僅有6件深海礦物探勘的合約；但到了2017年底，全部將有27項計畫。」

Escobar表示這些計畫包括了18份探勘多金屬結核(polymetallic nodule)的合約、6份是多金屬硫化物(polymetallic sulfide)還有4份則是鐵錳結殼(ferromanganese crust)。其中有17份會在夏威夷和中美洲之間，太平洋的克拉里昂―克利伯頓地區進行。

業界估計海床上方或下方總共蘊藏數十億噸的錳、銅、鎳和鈷。這些金屬可以用來製造發電機、馬達、金屬合金、電池、鍍金和其他許多產品。

有些支持採礦的人宣稱礦業公司可以藉由修復海岸生態系，或是製造新的離岸人工礁體，來補償他們進行礦業活動時必然會造成的傷害。Van Dover表示：「但這就像是說要挽救橘子林，然後去保護頻果園一樣。」

夏威夷大學馬諾分校的海洋學教授Craig Smith表示：「聲稱可以增加其他地方的生物多樣性，來補償深海損失的多樣性根本是在模糊焦點，沒有任何科學意義。」

Van Dover強調要讓深海生態系和物種從干擾中復原也得花上數十年甚至數個世紀的時間，如果能完全復原的話。

研究人員主張有些開礦提案的面積(其中最大的涵蓋範圍超過83,000平方公里，比兩個台灣還大)以及進行的深度(海平面以下5公里或更深)都會讓受影響地區的復育工作費用過高而不可能實行。另外，用來執行復育行動所需的方法大多數也還未經測試。

來自美國、墨西哥、法國、英國、荷蘭、波蘭和澳洲的深海學家和法律專家和Van Dover、Pendleton、Escobar、Smith共同撰寫了這篇同儕審查的通訊。

他們分別為：南安普敦大學的J.A. Ardron和D. Jones、深海保育聯盟的M. Gianni、IUCN全球海洋與極區計畫暨威克里夫管理公司的K.M. Gjerde、麥覺理大學的A. Jaeckel、加州大學聖地牙哥分校斯克里普斯海洋研究所的L.A. Levin、倫敦大學學院的H. Niner、夏威夷大學馬諾分校的L. Watling、倫敦經濟學院的T. Thiele、海景顧問公司的P.P.E. Weaver。

Biodiversity Loss from Deep-Sea Mining Will be Unavoidable

Biodiversity losses from deep-sea mining are unavoidable and possibly irrevocable, an international team of 15 marine scientists, resource economists and legal scholars argue in a letter published today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The experts say the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which is responsible under the UN Law of the Sea for regulating undersea mining in areas outside national jurisdictions, must recognize this risk. They say it must also communicate the risk clearly to its member states and the public to inform discussions about whether deep-seabed mining should proceed, and if so, what standards and safeguards need to be put into place to minimize biodiversity loss.

“There is tremendous uncertainty about ecological responses to deep-sea mining,” said Cindy L. Van Dover, Harvey W. Smith Professor of Biological Oceanography at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “Responsible mining needs to rely on environmental management actions that will protect deep-sea biodiversity and not on actions that are unproven or unreasonable.”

“The extraction of non-renewable resources always includes tradeoffs,” said Linwood Pendleton, International Chair in Marine Ecosystem Services at the European Institute of Marine Studies and an adjunct professor at Duke’s Nicholas School. “A serious trade-off for deep-sea mining will be an unavoidable loss of biodiversity, including many species that have yet to be discovered.”

Faced with this inevitable outcome, it’s important that we understand deep-sea ecosystems and have a good idea of what we stand to lose before mining alters the seafloor forever, said Pendleton, who also serves as a senior scholar in the Oceans and Coastal Policy Program at Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Time is of the essence, the experts stress.

“Undersea deposits of metals and rare earth elements are not yet being mined, but there has been an increase in the number of applications for mining contracts,”  said Elva Escobar of the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology. “In 2001, there were just six deep-sea mineral exploration contracts; by the end of 2017, there will be a total of 27 projects.”

These projects include 18 contracts for polymetallic nodules, six for polymetallic sulfides and four for ferromanganese crusts, Escobar said. Of these, 17 would take place in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean between Hawai’i and Central America.

Industry estimates that billions of tons of manganese, copper, nickel and cobalt lie on or beneath the seafloor. These metals are used in electrical generators and motors, metal alloys, batteries, paints, and many other products. 

Some mining proponents have argued that companies could offset the inevitable damage their activities will cause by restoring coastal ecosystems or creating new artificial offshore reefs. “But this is like saving apple orchards to protect orange groves,” Van Dover said.

“The argument that you can compensate for the loss of biological diversity in the deep sea with gains in diversity elsewhere is so ambiguous as to be scientifically meaningless,” said Craig Smith, professor of oceanography at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

Deep-sea ecosystems and species can take decades or even centuries to recover from a disturbance, if they recover at all, Van Dover noted.

The scale of some proposed mining operations -- the largest of which will cover more than 83,000 square kilometers, an area larger than Maine -- and the depths at which some mining is to be conducted (three miles or more below the sea surface) will make reclamation of the affected sites so cost-prohibitive as to be unrealistic, the authors argue. And the approaches needed to perform restorative action are still largely untested.

Deep-sea scientists and legal experts from the United States, Mexico, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland and Australia co-wrote the peer-reviewed correspondence with Van Dover, Pendleton, Escobar and Smith.

They are: J.A. Ardron and D. Jones of the University of Southampton; M. Gianni of the Deep-Sea Conservation Coalition; K.M. Gjerde of Wycliffe Management and the IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme; A. Jaeckel of Macquarie University; L.A. Levin of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego; H. Niner of University College London; L. Watling of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa; T. Thiele of the London School of Economics; P.J. Turner of Duke; and P.P.E. Weaver of Seascape Consultants. 

原始論文：C. L. Van Dover, J. A. Ardron, E. Escobar, M. Gianni, K. M. Gjerde, A. Jaeckel, D. O. B. Jones, L. A. Levin, H. J. Niner, L. Pendleton, C. R. Smith, T. Thiele, P. J. Turner, L. Watling, P. P. E. Weaver. Biodiversity loss from deep-sea mining. Nature Geoscience, 2017; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2983

引用自：Duke University. "Biodiversity loss from deep-sea mining will be unavoidable." 

原文網址：https://nicholas.duke.edu/about/news/biodiversity-loss-deep-sea-mining-will-be-unavoidable