Africa Must Act on Deep-Sea Mining Before It Becomes a New Battleground

The single sharpest fact is that Malawi, Kenya, and Madagascar are the first African countries to take a stand on deep-sea mining (DSM). At the 11th Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa in June, they joined 40 nations from across the world in endorsing a precautionary pause on DSM in international waters, which cover 64 per cent of the Earth's ocean surface.

The international seabed area lies beyond any country's jurisdiction and is home to ecosystems, species, biodiversity support, nutrient cycling, and carbon sequestration functions critical to Earth's climate balance.

The ocean covers 70 per cent of the Earth's surface, but less than 30 per cent of the seafloor has been mapped, and humans have explored less than 0.001 per cent of the deep ocean floor, which is an area about the size of Cairo.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has declared the international seabed the 'common heritage of humankind.' This means the international seabed should be managed for the benefit of all humanity, and cannot be monopolised by a few powerful states. It can be used only for peaceful purposes.

DSM has recently been proposed as key to the green energy transition because metals like copper, cobalt, manganese, and nickel used in batteries and renewables are derived from deep-sea nodules located 4,000m to 6,000m below the ocean surface. However, emerging evidence shows that a circular economy focused on recycling and material design can meet these needs without starting a new extractive race to exploit the deep seabed.

The industry is no longer only an environmental or economic issue – it is also an emerging security challenge. Africa will be affected and must help shape global governance before major powers turn the seabed into a geopolitical battleground.

Evidence shows that DSM is being used to gather military intelligence. In March, a Mongabay and CNN investigation revealed that eight Chinese state-owned vessels conducting research spent less than 10 per cent of their time in designated International Seabed Authority (ISA) exploration areas.

Over the past five years, these ships, which have direct links to the Chinese Navy and regularly dock at military ports, navigated predominantly military-sensitive waters around Guam, Taiwan, and other strategic areas with their Automatic Identification System transponders switched off. Mapping the seabed and collecting data could enable these ostensibly benign civilian vessels to gather military intelligence by identifying submarine routes and refining anti-submarine warfare capabilities.

This would help predict the location of rival submarines and critical undersea infrastructure, such as cables that carry over 95 per cent of all internet traffic and sometimes transmit classified military communications and intelligence.

These developments blur the line between DSM and military reconnaissance, reinforcing growing concerns that the race to the deep is also a race to dominate the undersea battlespace. DSM risks becoming a destructive industry enabling surveillance for both legitimate civilian and military purposes – and a primary theatre for great power competition.

In April 2025, a United States executive order directed the rapid, unilateral exploitation of the seabed outside the ISA framework. The stated aim was to 'counter China's growing influence over seabed mineral resources' for national security purposes, among other reasons.

DSM is becoming a maritime security issue, threatening the multilateral governance edifice Africa helped build. The continent's sea lanes are already zones of geopolitical rivalry, with a surge in foreign naval deployments, bases, and ports. Iran's attempted ballistic missile strike on the US-United Kingdom military outpost on Diego Garcia island in March – threatening Mauritian and East African coastlines – revealed Africa's vulnerability in global war contexts.

Neither the ISA nor the African maritime frameworks were designed to address DSM's possible covert dimensions, creating significant regulatory gaps. While global DSM debates emphasize environmental and economic issues, the security implications remain a blind spot, giving major powers and industry players latitude with limited global oversight.

Africa has several reasons to make its voice heard on DSM, but from a security perspective, the priority is to directly confront the threat of dual-use risks. The ISA Secretariat is determined to finalize the mining code of rules in 2026, so African states must act urgently while the window for change exists.

In the face of this emerging threat, African states must join the international effort to regulate DSM and prevent it from becoming a battleground. They must prioritize the security of their own waters, protect their economic interests, and promote a more sustainable approach to deep-sea mining.