Editorial: We Need Clarity on Phosphate Once and For All
President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah should be commended for opposing seabed phosphate mining in the Atlantic Ocean. She is right. Namibia should not be a guinea pig for an industry that remains untested. New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority blocked marine phosphate mining in February 2015 after establishing that the damage to the seabed would be significant and […] The post Editorial: We Need Clarity on Phosphate Once and For All appeared first on The Namibian .
President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah should be commended for opposing seabed phosphate mining in the Atlantic Ocean.
She is right. Namibia should not be a guinea pig for an industry that remains untested.
New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority blocked marine phosphate mining in February 2015 after establishing that the damage to the seabed would be significant and permanent.
“The destructive effects of the extractive activity, coupled with the potentially significant impact of the deposition of sediment on areas adjacent to the mining blocks and on the wider marine environment, could not be mitigated by any set of conditions or adaptive management regime that might reasonably be imposed,” the New Zealand authority said at the time.
That is something we could and should learn from New Zealand: clarity.
The decision by environmental commissioner Timoteus Mufeti to grant Namibian Marine Phosphate (NMP) an environmental clearance certificate on 5 August exposes the lack of a clear policy position on seabed phosphate mining. This more than a decade after the issue first surfaced.
