It’s been described as the next big land-grab - the race to dig-up the sea bed.

It’s called deep sea mining. And the mining industry see it as their next new hope.

Canadian mining company Nautilus Minerals has its eyes set on Papua New Guinea as the testing ground for the world’s first attempt to mine metals from the sea floor.

Nautilus plans to extract gold and copper from the bottom of the Bismarck Sea, off the coasts of the islands of East Britain and New Ireland Province. The project is named Solwara 1, and it gained PNG government approval 2012. Since then it’s floundered a little, but the company still aim to be actively mining by 2018.

On this week's show we speak with Dr. Helen Rosenbaum from the Deep Sea Mining Campaign. Helen talks about the serious risks of deep sea mining and the local and international campaigns against it.

Guest: Helen Rosenbaum (Deep Sea Mining Campaign)

Further information:

• Deep Sea Mining Campaign
• Mineral Policy Institute
• Deep Sea Mining − The Pacific Experiment