Major Challenges of the Seventies 



In spite of the growing demand for minerals and the availability of 

 enhanced technological capabilities for exploiting them from the oceans, two 

 strong countercurrents have developed during the past several years which 

 may have a retarding effect on offshore mineral production during this 

 decade. The first of these is growing preoccupation with preserving and 

 securing the quality of our environment. Concern over the quality of our 

 inland lakes and rivers and the air we breathe has expanded to encompass 

 the oceans, particularly the near-shore areas. This is largely the result of a 

 series of highly publicized disasters and near-disasters which have included 

 the Santa Barbara blowout and the Torrey Canyon and Ocean Eagle oil 

 tanker spills. Much has also been written recently about possible detrimental 

 effects of mineral dredging and processing operations at sea on the ambient 

 environment. 



Potential hazards on a previously unknown scale are being created by an 

 ever-growing world fleet of supertankers which even today plies waters 

 off heavily populated coastal areas and which may, in the near future, 

 operate in the Arctic. The extremely slow degradation of oil under polar 

 conditions due to lack of microbial action makes both the prospect of its 

 exploitation and transport in far northern seas unpalatable to many. To 

 anticipate and address potential problems of environmental degradation 

 stemming from resource development in this region, the President's five- 

 point marine sciences program includes an expansion of Arctic research, 

 with special emphasis on ecological considerations. 



Thus a major challenge in the 1970's will be the achievement of a balance 

 between potentially conflicting objectives of marine resource development 

 and environmental protection which will preserve the rights of the public, 

 industry and Government while at the same time maximize net national 

 benefits, social as well as economic. As discussed in chapter III on the 

 coastal zone, this delicate balance must be achieved within the framework 

 of a multiple-use concept which avoids the equally unsatisfactory extremes 

 of complete freedom for industrial mineral development on one hand and 

 complete exclusion of the mineral industry from coastal waters on the other. 



Paradoxically, a second major challenge to an expansion of marine min- 

 erals mining is being generated by growing worldwide interest in the 

 minerals. As described in chapter XIII on international policy, the Malta 

 proposal in the fall of 1967 focused international attention on the questions 

 of ownership of the seabed minerals outside the boundaries of national juris- 

 diction and how these boundaries are to be determined. Subsequent discus- 

 sions within various international forums and individual nations have: 

 stimulated the interest of developing coastal nations in the mineral potential 

 of their offshore margins; raised the possibility for developing landlocked 

 states of sharing in the economic benefits from deep ocean minerals; and 

 created fears in many mineral exporting nations by raising the specter of 

 a new source of competition. The net effect of this focusing of attention may 

 actually retard the exploitation of seabed minerals in the years immediately 

 ahead. This was demonstrated by passage of a resolution by the United 

 Nations in December 1969, despite opposition by the United States, which 



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