Stand on the beach at Chorkor or Jamestown at dawn and you will see the canoes come in, nets heavy or, too often these days, nearly empty.
Our fishers know better than any scientist that the sea gives generously but does not forgive carelessness. I think of them whenever I hear the newest promise of ocean wealth: that the deep seabed, four to six kilometres below the surface, holds enough nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper to power the world’s electric cars and wind turbines for decades.
That promise is now the hottest argument in global ocean politics. In March and July this year, the Council of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the body set up under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to manage seabed minerals beyond national borders on behalf of all humankind, sat for its 31st session in Kingston, Jamaica, under the presidency of India’s Ambassador Mayank Joshi. Delegates worked hard. Yet once again, they could not agree the Mining Code, the rulebook that has been in the making for more than a decade. They left with a roadmap, a call for written proposals by 1 October and a date to try again in March 2027. India, for its part, did not wait. It now holds three ISA exploration contracts, including a fresh 10,000 square kilometre block on the Carlsberg Ridge in the Indian Ocean.
So the question lands squarely on our doorstep: how far should we go in digging up the seabed when nobody can yet tell us what the damage will be? Let me be plain. Ghana should neither slam the door shut nor rush through it. We should know first, set the rules second and dig, if at all, last.
What We Know, and What We Do Not
Here is what troubles me. In 1979, a mining machine was tested on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Scientists went back to the site recently and published their findings in Nature in 2025. Forty four years on, the eight metre wide track cleared by the machine looked almost as raw as the day it was cut, and the variety of life there was still poorer than on the untouched seabed next to it. Think about that. A single test, before most young Ghanaians were born, is still visible today. The nodules themselves grow a few millimetres in a million years. Once they are gone, they are gone.
Then there are the clouds of mud that mining throws up. One European trial found the sediment rolling downslope for up to 500 metres before most of it settled, while the finest particles drifted much further. If such plumes are released in midwater, they may reach the depths where tuna feed, and tuna is the backbone of the fleet that sails from Tema. Scientists are still arguing about basic facts, such as the 2024 claim that nodules produce “dark oxygen” on the sea floor, a claim later studies have challenged. When the experts themselves are unsure how this world works, how can any regulator say with confidence how much harm is acceptable?
How the World Is Handling It
Look around and you will see four very different answers. The first is the multilateral way. More than thirty ISA exploration contracts are in force, held by China, India, Japan, Russia, France, Germany and others, yet not one commercial mining licence has been granted in international waters. The principle is noble: these minerals are the common heritage of humankind, and that includes Ghana.
The second is to go it alone. The United States, which never joined UNCLOS, has dusted off a seabed mining law from 1980. In January 2026, The Metals Company USA applied to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a licence and commercial permit over roughly 65,000 square kilometres of the Pacific, and the agency found the application compliant in April. Many countries at the ISA have rightly warned that this kind of shortcut weakens the rule of law at sea.
The third is to mine at home. In February 2026, Japan lifted rare earth mud from about 5,600 metres off Minamitori Island, inside its own waters, and plans a full trial next year. The Cook Islands has licensed exploration under its own law. The fourth is to pause. Some 46 countries now back a moratorium or precautionary pause, six of them African. Malawi led the way in May, Mozambique and Mauritius followed, and Kenya, which supports a pause, took its first seat on the ISA Council this year.
So, Is It Worth It?
Honestly, it could be, but not yet and not on the terms on the table. Yes, Africa needs critical minerals, new technology, skilled jobs and fair revenue. But the economics remain unproven, battery makers are steadily moving to chemistries that use little or no nickel and cobalt, and the formula for sharing revenue with developing countries is still being fought over in Kingston. The benefits are possible, not guaranteed. Ghana has earned the right to shape those terms. Our own Nii Allotey Odunton led the ISA as Secretary General from 2009 to 2016. Accra hosted the 2019 Africa Group workshop on deep seabed mining. Ghana has spoken for the African Group on the payment regime, and in 2024 we appointed our first Permanent Representative to the ISA. At home, our continental shelf may hold minerals of its own, but we have never properly surveyed it.
What Ghana Should Do Now
- Take a clear stand. Ghana should support a conditional pause on commercial mining in international waters until the Mining Code is adopted with firm environmental limits, regional environmental management plans and independent inspectors. We should say, without hesitation, that no country should license mining outside the ISA. Scientific exploration should continue.
- Write our own law before anyone asks for a licence. We need a National Seabed Minerals Policy and Act for our continental shelf, with one lead regulator working hand in hand with the Ghana Maritime Authority, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fisheries Commission, the Minerals Commission and the Ghana Geological Survey Authority. We can learn from the Pacific Community’s regional framework, the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Act and the 2011 opinion of the Seabed Disputes Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea on what sponsoring states owe the world. The law must demand full impact studies, real hearings in fishing communities, environmental bonds and clear liability.
- Know our seabed. A five year National Deep Ocean Baseline Programme, led by the University of Ghana, the University of Cape Coast, the Regional Maritime University and the Ghana Geological Survey Authority, should map our seabed, record the life on it and make the data public. ISA training programmes and the UN Decade of Ocean Science can help us do it.
- Move step by step. If Ghana ever decides to mine, every project should pass four gates: exploration, a monitored pilot, a limited operation under hard limits on plumes, noise and loss of life, and expansion only once those limits are met. At least 30 percent of any target area should be left untouched as a reference zone, in line with the global 30 by 30 biodiversity goal, and monitoring data should be open to the public as it is collected.
- Insist on a fair share. At the ISA, Ghana should push for royalty floors, an environmental compensation fund and genuine benefit sharing for developing nations. At home, any seabed revenue should go into a Blue Economy Fund for ocean science, fisheries and coastal towns, reported openly through the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
- Speak with one African voice. Through ECOWAS, the Abidjan Convention, the African Union Africa Blue Economy Strategy and the Africa Mining Vision, we should agree a common position before the ISA meets again in March 2027.
- Mine our rubbish first. Mountains of discarded phones, computers and batteries hold copper, cobalt and gold. Recovering them safely would create jobs, clean up our cities and ease the pressure on the seabed. That opportunity is sitting in our backyard today.
Conclusion
The deep sea belongs to all of us, including the fisher at Chorkor and the child who is not yet born. What we decide in the next two years may not be undone for centuries. Caution is not cowardice, and patience is not weakness. The real choice is not between mining and protecting the ocean; it is about getting the order right: knowledge first, rules second, and extraction only where the evidence shows it will not cause serious harm. Ghana helped build the ISA. Now we must help it deliver a Mining Code worthy of the common heritage of humankind, and put our own house in order. CIMAG stands ready to bring government, scientists, industry and coastal communities to one table to make that happen.
By: Albert Derrick Fiatui, Executive Director, Centre for International Maritime Affairs, Ghana (CIMAG)
Albert Derrick Fiatui, is the Executive Director at the Centre for International Maritime Affairs, Ghana (CIMAG), an Advocacy, Research and Operational Policy Think- Tank, with focus on the Maritime Industry (Blue Economy) and general Ocean Governance. He is a Maritime Policy, Ocean Governance and Coastal Development Expert.
Email: info@cimaghana.org /albert@cimaghana.org