FIFTY years ago, people started dreaming of mining the deep seabed. Since then, those dreams have turned into a dystopian nightmare as scientists have found diverse, interconnected ecosystems at the bottom of the ocean and realised that mining them risks upsetting the health and functioning of our planet.
We have yet to start deep-sea mining, so this dystopia is just one version of the future, but it is one that may soon get the green light. Countries such as the UK, France, Belgium, Jamaica, Russia, China and Japan all have their sights set on the metals inside coal-sized nodules scattered across a vast abyssal plain, called the Clarion Clipperton Zone, 5000 metres underwater in the Pacific Ocean.
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