Video By Esther Figueroa
On 31 March, 2023, Jamaicans under the leadership of the Jamaica Climate Change Youth Council held a protest to tell delegates attending the International Seabed Authority's meeting that they must protect the planet's oceans and ban seabed mining, because such mining would cause unimaginable damage to marine ecologies that we all depend upon for oxygen, food, water, carbon sequestration, climate regulation, culture, and connectivity, but of which humans have very little understanding or knowledge.
The delegates of the ISA, without any oversight or input from the inhabitants of the world, are deciding the fate and future of the planet. By not voting for a moratorium on seabed mining, by permitting seabed mining and allowing seabed mining in the open oceans to legally start in July 2023, they are enabling reckless extractivism to spread to the most important part of our planet - our oceans and seas.