The Coastal Clans Who Sank the World's First Seabed Mine

Solwara 1, in the Bismarck Sea off New Ireland, was to be the world's first commercial deep-sea mine — cutting hydrothermal vent chimneys 1,600 metres down for copper and gold under a licence Papua New Guinea issued to Nautilus Minerals in 2011. The Alliance of Solwara Warriors formed from coastal communities and church organisations along the Bismarck and Solomon Seas, for whom the sea is both larder and ancestral domain, and ran petitions, protests and litigation, including 2017 court proceedings to force disclosure of the licensing and impact documents. Investors withdrew, and in 2019 Nautilus went bankrupt and was delisted, with PNG's government left having lost its stake. The Alliance's campaigning fed directly into the Melanesian Spearhead Group's 2023 moratorium, under which five Melanesian governments agreed to prohibit seabed mining in their waters — though the Solwara tenement has since been picked up by a new owner, so the alliance keeps organising.