When Solomon Kahoʻohalahala arrived in Jamaica in mid-March to attend a meeting of the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, he felt the weight of the moment on his shoulders.
The United Nations agency is in the midst of crafting regulations to govern a new industry for deep-sea mining that involves scraping mineral deposits from the ocean floor, often referred to as nodules. But after three years of advocating on behalf of Indigenous peoples, none of Kahoʻohalahala’s or his colleagues’ recommendations had been incorporated into the latest draft proposal.
“It was disheartening and discouraging for us to be absolutely dismissed,” said Kahoʻohalahala, who is Native Hawaiian from the island of Lanaʻi in Hawaiʻi. “There was no option for us except to make our best case.”
On the first day of the two-week gathering, Kahoʻohalahala urged the nation-state representatives gathered at the International Seabed Authority headquarters to consider Indigenous peoples’ perspectives. And to his surprise, many representatives agree... Read more
