Police removed five Greenpeace protesters from the government-owned research ship Tangaroa in Wellington Harbour on Saturday, after activists boarded the vessel to protest its survey work for an American company planning to mine the Pacific seafloor. RNZ reported that police were considering charges.
The Tangaroa is operated by Earth Sciences New Zealand, the state-owned science organisation formed last year when NIWA and GNS Science merged. It has just returned from a 65-day survey of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a vast stretch of deep Pacific seabed in international waters between Hawaii and Mexico that is scattered with metal-rich mineral nodules.
The survey was carried out for UK Seabed Resources, a subsidiary of US-based Glomar Minerals. According to 1News, Glomar intends to begin commercial recovery of seafloor minerals as early as 2027.
One activist dressed as US President Donald Trump and flew an American flag from the ship’s railings on Saturday morning. Another held a banner reading “Don’t Mine the Moana”, moana being the MΔori word for ocean.
Police told 1News that “five people were removed from the vessel by police, with charges being considered.”
Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner Juressa Lee said the group objected to a publicly owned ship being used to help a company preparing to mine the deep ocean. “It’s disturbing to see this vessel, which is owned by our government, being used to further American imperialism in the Pacific where resistance to this new form of extraction is strong,” Lee said in a Greenpeace statement.
She told RNZ the survey data could ultimately feed Project Vault, a US government initiative to stockpile critical minerals for military and industrial use. “These activists, and thousands of others, don’t want to see our environment destroyed for the purpose of war,” Lee said.
Resources Minister Shane Jones rejected the protest, describing it to RNZ as a “parasitic stunt” designed to raise money. He said Earth Sciences New Zealand had a commercial side to its work and nobody should be surprised that the ship took on outside contracts.
“Tangaroa is run by an independent board and a government-owned agency obviously driven to generate revenue as a part of its scientific mandate, and from time-to-time I’ve no doubt the Tangaroa is used for both domestic and international purposes – no one should be surprised by that,” Jones said.
He said the ship’s highly educated crew and scientists should not have their livelihoods “hijacked by Greenpeace”, and suggested the group was out of step with voters ahead of the election. “I think Greenpeace are trying to scare and catastrophise and intimidate Kiwis, well Kiwis are about to vote, and they’re going to vote for resource development within guardrails.”
Earth Sciences New Zealand told RNZ it provides independent research for both New Zealand and international clients, and referred questions about this particular contract to the company. “Our work includes scientific surveys that collect and analyse data to improve understanding of the deep-sea environment, including its biology and ecology,” the organisation said.
“This research contributes to the scientific evidence needed to understand these environments and the potential impacts of activities within them. This enables stakeholders and regulatory agencies to base decisions on robust scientific evidence.”
The voyage left Tahiti on 29 July. When it set off, industry outlet Ocean Mining Intel reported that it was the first comprehensive geological and biological survey of UK Seabed Resources’ UK2 licence area in more than 40 years. The company holds two exploration licences from the International Seabed Authority, the United Nations body that regulates mining in international waters.
Glomar has described the scale of what lies on the seabed there. “UKSR’s two International Seabed Authority CCZ license areas cover approximately 133,000 kmΒ² of deep seafloor, an area comparable in size to Louisiana, covered in polymetallic nodules containing manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper, and rare earths in a single ore,” the company said, as quoted by RNZ. It said the work was moving it closer to the dataset needed for commercial recovery, and chief executive Chris Williams has said the findings will be shared.
Those metals are used in batteries, electronics and defence equipment, which is why the nodules have drawn growing interest from governments worried about China’s grip on critical mineral supply chains. In April 2025 Trump signed an executive order to speed up deep sea mining in both US and international waters, and Greenpeace says the US administration is now preparing to issue its own commercial permits, bypassing the International Seabed Authority, where member countries are still negotiating a rulebook for the industry.
Environmental groups and many scientists warn that scraping nodules from the seabed would destroy slow-growing habitats that are barely understood, and that sediment plumes could spread damage far beyond the mined area. Supporters of the industry argue that the metals are needed for the energy transition and that seabed mining could avoid some of the harm caused by mining on land.
New Zealand’s official position has not changed since 2022, when the government announced support for a conditional moratorium on deep sea mining in international waters. Greenpeace says more than 100,000 New Zealanders have signed an open letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters asking him to back a global ban.
Lee argued Pacific nations have the most to lose. “Pacific Peoples are at the frontline of this fight, and deep sea mining puts their way of life and cultural heritage at risk. It must not be allowed to start,” she said.
It is not the first time the Tangaroa has been at the centre of a protest. In 2015 Greenpeace activists occupied the same ship over its use by the oil industry to survey New Zealand waters for deep sea drilling.
Saturday’s occupation puts a spotlight on a question that is likely to come up again. Earth Sciences New Zealand is expected to earn commercial income from its ships and expertise, and deep ocean surveys are exactly the kind of work the Tangaroa was built for. But the same data that helps scientists understand the deep sea can also help a mining company plan where to dig, and that sits awkwardly alongside New Zealand’s support for a moratorium.
RNZ said it had approached Glomar Minerals for comment on the protest.
Should a taxpayer-owned research ship take on survey work for seabed mining companies, or is that a sensible use of a world-class vessel? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
Leave a Reply