New Release: Threats to Our Ocean Heritage – Deep Sea Mining

The First Comprehensive Look at What We Stand to Lose Beneath the Waves

The race to mine the deep seabed has begun. But as international attention turns to this emerging industry, a critical question remains largely unasked: What irreplaceable cultural treasures might we destroy in the process?

Threats to Our Ocean Heritage: Deep Sea Mining is the first peer-reviewed book to explore how DSM intersects with underwater heritage, policy, and community rights, offering crucial insight as international attention turns to the seabed.

What Sets This Work Apart

Truly Interdisciplinary Approach: Archaeologists, ecologists, Indigenous leaders and legal experts come together to explore what’s truly at stake – not just ecologically, but culturally.

Indigenous Voices Included: The book features powerful case studies from New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, including Indigenous testimonies published in full.

Practical Solutions: The work offers practical tools for integrating cultural heritage into environmental impact assessments.

Vivid Visuals: Photographs and graphics reveal the hidden world of the deep sea and what is at stake.

Key Features:

• Examines the cultural risks of DSM in the context of the BBNJ Treaty and International Seabed Authority
• Features case studies from New Zealand and the Pacific Islands
• Includes Indigenous testimonies published in full
• Provides tools for integrating cultural heritage into environmental impact assessments
• Contains vivid visuals that reveal the hidden world of the deep sea

Part of an Important Trilogy

Threats to Our Ocean Heritage: Deep Sea Mining is the third component of a trilogy of books initiated by The Ocean Foundation, supported by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, and published by Springer that focus on the risks to the ocean’s natural and cultural heritage, noting that the zones at risk should extend to include seas, lakes and other aquatic places.

Combined, the volumes Threats to Our Ocean Heritage: Potentially Polluting Wrecks, Bottom Trawling, and Threats to Our Ocean Heritage: Deep Sea Mining are raising international awareness of the interaction of the physical, biological, and chemical risks to heritage in the ocean. Inadequate operating standards and legal safeguards are also a factor and increase the overall risk. All aspects of the associated risks are well covered and discussed in the three volumes and especially here for deep sea mining (DSM).