(CN) — The World Wildlife Fund is suing Norway in an attempt to halt seafloor mining in the Nordic country’s territory, the international conservation organization announced Thursday.
The lawsuit comes after Norway in April became one of the first countries to allow exploration and extraction of minerals on its seabed, despite widespread criticism.
Critics say there is not sufficient research to show what the consequences of offshore mining would be for marine life and ecosystems.
An impact assessment by the Ministry of Energy laid the foundations for the Norwegian government’s decision to open the seafloor to mining. The WWF argues that this assessment does not satisfy the minimum requirements for impact evaluations under Norway’s §2-2 of the Seabed Minerals Act, meaning that the opening has no legal basis.
“We believe the state is breaking Norwegian law when they now open a new and potentially destructive industry without having investigated the consequences sufficiently. It will create a dangerous precedent if we allow the government to ignore its own rules, override all environmental advice and manage our common natural resources blindly,” said Karoline Andaur, secretary general of the WWF in Norway.
The Norwegian Environment Agency, which operates under the country’s Ministry of Climate and Environment, made similar conclusions in a consultation response that says the impact assessment delivered to the Ministry of Energy is lacking.
There are estimates that Norway's seafloor minerals could be worth a whopping 1 trillion Norwegian kroner (around $94 billion), Jan-Gunnar Winther, director at the Center for Oceans and the Arctic — a subsidiary of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries and part of the Arctic University of Norway — told national broadcaster NRK.
The exploration area covers 281,000 square kilometers (108,500 square miles) of ocean, equal to the size of the U.K., between the Barents Sea in the Arctic and the Greenland Sea, and houses minerals and metals such as silver, gold, zinc, copper, cobalt and lithium.
The government argues in its mineral extraction strategy that these components are needed to accelerate a green transition by producing wind turbines, electric cars, hydropower and solar cells, among many other climate-friendly technologies.
Even so, the risk of destroying marine ecosystems built up over millions of years is not worth taking without further investigation, the EU said.
In January, the EU parliament gathered to debate Norway’s soon-to-be-announced plan to open its seafloor for business, sparking worries about marine life.
“We recommend a ban until it is scientifically proven that this is not harmful. We still have limited knowledge about the effect mineral extraction has on marine ecosystems,” said Janusz Wojciechowski, European commissioner for agriculture, according to NRK.
The commissioner acknowledged that Norway, which is not a member of the European Union but participates in the European Economic Area, has the right to make sovereign decisions, but he said that cases involving nature aren't contained by national borders.
Neighboring countries Sweden, Finland and Denmark have all paused plans for deep-sea mining, while France has committed to banning the practice.
In a written response to Norwegian broadcaster TV2 on Thursday, Astrid Bergmål, state secretary of the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, said : “We believe that a thorough process has been carried out with broad involvement, and that the applicable requirements have been followed. I note that WWF wants to try the case in court, and they have the right to do so.”
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