WWF-Norway announced today it has filed a lawsuit against the Norwegian government over its decision to allow deep seabed mining activities. The government’s decision to open the Norwegian Continental Shelf for seabed mining activities came on April 12, 2024.
According to WWF-Norway, the required impact assessment conducted by the Ministry of Energy does not meet the legal requirements of the Norwegian Subsea Minerals Act § 2-2.
Under § 2-2, the Ministry of Energy is “responsible for conducting an impact assessment prior to opening of new areas on the Continental Shelf for mineral activities”. Such an impact assessment must discuss the potential environmental impacts, as well as impacts on business, economic, and social factors.
WWF-Norway argues that this requirement was not met in the impact assessment for deep seabed mining.
CEO of WWF-Norway, Karoline Andaur, said: “It will set a dangerous precedent if we allow the government to ignore its own rules, override all environmental advice, and manage our common natural resources blindly”.
Additionally, when WWF-Norway first announced its intention to sue the Norwegian government in April 2024, it also said that the government’s lack of “adequate knowledge about the marine environment in the deep sea” hampers their ability to correctly assess the environmental consequences of seabed mining activities.
Even the European Parliament had expressed its concerns regarding deep seabed mining, stating that it calls on “an international moratorium on deep-seabed mining […] until the effects of deep-sea mining on the marine environment, biodiversity and human activities at sea have been studied and researched sufficiently and deep-seabed mining can be managed to ensure no marine biodiversity loss or degradation”.
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