Deep Seas’ Hidden Cost: Species on the Brink
Earlier in the year, scientists identified eight hundred and sixty-six new marine species, many of them from depths of one to four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine meters in the deep seas, the first phase to document one hundred thousands new species in the earth's oceans.
Recently, scientists found 5,000 new species on the seabed of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific, an area that spans 1.7 square miles between Hawaii and Mexico, one of the main areas of interest for a large number of investors.
In March, scientists discovered about 100 never-before-seen species living on the Salas y Gomez and Nazca ridge, underwater water mountains that run 3,000 kilometers, longer than the Himalayas, more than 70 percent of them existing outside protected areas.
These are just a few of the new species existing in the deep seas, with scientists believing that the total number of creatures living in the deep seas reach 2.2 million, 90 percent of them unknown, while estimates suggest there could be up to one million undescribed species in the deep Pelagic ocean.
The market size of copper hit nearly 170 billion dollars worldwide in 2022, but due to the increasing demand for minerals that aid the production of electric cars, the market size of copper is anticipated to increase by 90 billion dollars by 2030.
The market size of nickel hit 56.42 billion dollars in 2025, but due to the heightened need for raw materials for the manufacture of electric cars, the market size of nickel is expected to reach around 100.29 billion dollars by 2034, accelerating at a compound growth rate (CAGR) of 6.56 percent from 2025 to 2034.
The global market size of cobalt was estimated at 16.96 billion dollars in 2024, but due to the desperation for materials that help produce more and more electric cars, the global market size of the mineral is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.7 percent from 2025 to 2030.
The deep seas are awash with these minerals, and in order to exploit them for the production of electric cars, nations are getting ready to carry out the Great Deep Sea Mineral Rush, which could destroy millions of innocent species in this part of the world, a curse from human greed and consumption.
In the rat race for the production of cobalt, the mining city of Kolwezi suffers, with 500,000 people affected by water contamination, and a 500 percent increase is projected for the production of the mineral in the next few years in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which holds 70 percent of the world's reserves.
Just to get as much nickel as possible for more electric cars, the mining city of Kabaena, a tropical island in Indonesia's southeast Sulawesi province, faces deforestation in the near future, with 920,000 hectares of nickel mining concessions under about two-thirds of forest cover.
In the desperation to meet the rising global consumption for electric cars, people living in Kolwezi face human rights challenges, subjected to forced evictions, as copper mining projects seek to expand production.
If humans could environmentally destroy places like Congo and Indonesia just for the production of electric cars, they would do the same thing to the environment in the deep seas, bringing great dangers to millions of innocent species at this part of the earth, ultimately worsening the earth's climate crisis through rising greenhouse gas emissions in the process of extracting minerals.
International cooperation, moratorium, and establishment of protected areas are crucial in this part of the earth, to prevent the scale of environmental challenges going on in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other vulnerable places.
What to Eat
Vegan food from Democratic Republic of Congo, Credit, The Nomadic Vegan