In a united front, the Alliance of Solwara Warriors in collaboration with the Caritas PNG, have made a call to the government to come clean on the re-issuing of the Nautilus Mineral Assets and license to a new company on the re-opening of the Solwara-1 Seabed Mining Project.
Jonathan Mesulam, the Director of the West Coast Development Foundation and member of the Solwara Warriors, stated that they have already presented an objection to the renewal of the Exploration Licence 1274 that was renewed on the 5th of May 2020.
“Companies have been in the country and meeting with the government since May last year. Since we filed the objection, they have been calling on the government for talks on the matter.”
Some of the brief points they raised in which they presented in their objection, include no national policy on seabed mining.
The second point made known is that at the moment the country has no regulative framework, both at the provincial and national level, to monitor the impact or regulate the seabed mining operation in our waters.
He added that the main point they have been trying their best to bring across was that Seabed mining has never been done anywhere in the world and there is no sufficient scientific knowledge of the impacts on the mining environment.
“The benefits are known but the risks are unknown.”
Nautilus was delisted in 2019, but a new company has since then acquired there assets.
This is the Deep Sea Finance & Mining Solutions.
In 2018 the Government through Prime Minister James Marape made a statement in Tuvalu declaring and supporting a moratorium on Seabed Mining, but since then has not made clear the government’s stance in the country.
Mesulam said that this is something they are pushing for to have the government come clear on this matter.