Recently Nautilus CEO Stephen Rogers and Nautilus Minerals-PNG boss Mel Togolo have made claims publicly that ‘fish stocks and livelihoods will not be impacted’ by the proposed Nautilus Solwara 1 deep sea mining project. The following article sums up the anger by many people in Papua New Guinea against the continuing spin and adverts that Nautius has been posting in PNG newspapers – of course Nautilus Mel Togolo couldn’t help responding to the outcry to their spin in his article ‘Setting record straight on Solwara 1’
Ashley XVI, Pioneer Fidalian | Post Courier
Let me express my views against the Nautilus Minerals-PNG boss Mel Togolo who said that there is no fish existing below the depth of 1600m.
Obviously, you know you are an Islander who should be standing with the majority of the people in the province to oppose this project.
If you know a bit on Marine Science, you would definitely feel a deep guilt in yourself that your comments recently are totally false, unreal and very misleading. How can you say that fish do not live at depths where there is no light and oxygen when science has proven that fish actually live far below the 1600m depths?
You must come to the fact and accept that whatever your Nautilus does at the ocean floor will still have huge impact on the marine ecosystem in that area.
Do you know anything about Ocean Upwelling and Bottom Up Control regarding the food chain in the marine environment? I think that you have been misled by the minds of greedy money making people.
Let me open up your mind about the deepest depths of the ocean. You must believe that there is life at the very bottom of where you want to do your mining. Fish species and invertebrates like crabs; octopus etc are down there.
And where do you think most of the rich nutrients that the fish and other pelagic species feed on come from? These nutrients come from the Benthic zone exactly like the place where you want to do your so-called mining. This happens through the process of Upwelling where rich nutrients from the deeper cooler waters flows up to the pelagic zone and allows species like tuna, travellies, dolphins, sharks, marlins etc to feed on.
Some months ago James Cameron went down to the deepest oceanic trench in the world (about 11 000m deep) and proved that there is life even at the most deepest part of the ocean.
He even took photographs of bizarre marine species that haven’t been identified before. Didn’t you read or even watch 60 minutes on EMTV before commenting? Please tell us where fish in that area will get their nutrients from?
