French Polynesia is looking to ban seabed mining in its waters.
Forty three members of the terroritory’s Council for the Economy, Society, Environment and Culture voted in favor of the motion, according to a post on the Radio New Zealand website.
Heremoana Maamaatuaiahutapu, the French Pacific territory’s marine resources minister, told a local TV station:
“Kiribati, Nauru and the Cook Islands are already engaged in an exploration process. We need to convince our cousins of the Pacific to stop this craziness. We are the first country member of the Forum to take this resolution on, I must say, the exploration of the seabed.”
The territory’s Exclusive Economic Zone spans more than 4.7 million square kilometers (1.8 million square miles), nearly half of all of France’s total claimed EEZ.
French Polynesia accounts for about half of France's exclusive economic zone.
French Polynesia moves towards ban on 'craziness' of seabed mining https://t.co/aviQbCv0hH pic.twitter.com/qsSunGIrUy
— Andrew Thaler (@DrAndrewThaler) September 7, 2022
