Reflective piece in response to Slow Dancing On The Seafloor

By Martha Fancy Brown

I read your piece with interest and curiosity. Slow dancing on the sea floor, it is!

Martha Fancy Brown is currently pursuing a Master's in Climate change and Global Development at the University of East Anglia in the UK. Previously worked with Nia Tero Foundation and Vanuatu Indigenous Land Defence Desk. Origination from Raga, Pentecost Island in Vanuatu.

These particles that dance together to form the core of these rare metallic rocks, called the polymetallic nodules, are somewhat a reflection of our human existence. For example, a human embryo develops from different stages beginning with fertilisation, where a sperm and an egg cell unite to form a zygote. This zygote undergoes multiple cell divisions, forming a ball of cells which develop into an embryo, later becomes a human being, literally You and I, but it all started from the core. Echoing what you said, the slow formation of a core is not accidental but rather deliberate to form something special.

I am trying to say that these underwater metals are no different from us, humans. The whole story of how they are formed and their significance in the seabed shows humans' deep spiritual, cultural, and physical connections with their surroundings. For instance, in Melanesian cultures, the way we live our daily subsistence life depends very much on the land, the ocean, and the atmosphere. We plant our food according to what and when nature tells us, we carry out certain cultural activities following specific plants, insects, and animal behaviours, which depict this deep interconnectedness we have with our surroundings. We are what we depend on and vice versa; nature to us.  The Ocean is our Core. The Land is our Core. The Sky is our Core. We are meta-existence; our reality can be defined beyond the physical and observable world. Our genetic core, like the core of the polymetallic nodules, builds our existence from our grandparents, our parents, and our children, embodying the past, the present, and the future.

Similarly, the polymetallic nodules that exist under the ocean hold the genetic inheritance of all life under the sea. At least, that is how I see and imagine it. They hold the history and life of the ocean floor. It is seen as a valuable rock to scientists and their technological ideas in combating climate change; however, mining it will further exacerbate climate change. For example, the ocean is considered the largest carbon sink, which absorbs around 25% of all CO2 from the atmosphere. The loss of deep-sea biodiversity following the mining of these growing nodules will impact the ocean’s carbon cycle and affect its ability to absorb global carbon emissions, thus enhancing climate change. Moreover, it will further destroy the very existence of the ocean life and the stories that it entails. These stories are shared with us through our survival with the ocean. We live in, for, and by the sea. We understand the interconnectedness of our human core with that of the polymetallic nodule, which, as you rightly describe metaphorically, they are truly slow dancing to bring forth life to the existence of life itself.

The question that we must ask ourselves are: Are we removing our very own existence by pursuing deep-sea mining? Are we willing to become empty shells with no core, no life? Or ignore our stories, our heritage, and our future? These should be the questions we reflect on and get ourselves to answer. Maybe then, we will be able to make sustainable choices that consider these polymetallic nodules as part of our past, our present, and our future.

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