Maureen Penjueli said the Pacific Ocean is being hyper-militarised. Photo: US Navy / Petty Officer 2nd Class Cole Pursley
Pacific civil society groups say 2025 has been a big year for the ocean.
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) representative Maureen Penjueli said the Pacific Ocean is being hyper-militarised and there is a desire for seabed minerals to be used to build-up military capacity.
"Critical minerals, whether from land or from the deep ocean itself, have a military end use, and that's been made very clear in 2025," Penjueli said during the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) 2025 State of the Ocean webinar.
"They're deemed extremely vital for defence industrial base, enabling the production of military platforms such as fighter aircraft, tanks, missiles, submarines.
"2025 is the year where we see the link between critical minerals on the sea floor and use [in the] military."
PANG's Joey Tau said one of the developments has been the increase in countries calling for a moratorium or pause on deep sea mining, which is now up to 40.
"Eight of which are from the Pacific and a sub-regional grouping the MSG (Melanesian Spearhead Group) still holds that political space or that movement around a moratorium."
Tau said it comes as the UN-sanctioned International Seabed Authority tries to come to an agreement on deep-sea mining rules at the same time as the United States is considering its own legal pathway.
"It is a bad precedent setting by the US, we hope that the ISA both assembly and the council would hold ground and warn the US."
He said unlike US, China spoke about the importance of multilateralism and it for global partners to maintain unity within the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) agreement which has not been ratified by the United States.
Also in February was the deep sea minerals talanoa, where Pacific leaders met to discuss deep sea mining.
"Some of our countries sit on different sides of the table on this issue. You have countries who are sponsoring and who are progressing the agenda of deep-sea mining, not only within their national jurisdiction, but also in the international arena," Tau said.
Legal and moral problem
In May, UN human rights experts expressed concern about the release of treated nuclear wastewater.
Japan's government has consistently maintained the release meets international safety standards, and monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency shows there is no measurable impact beyond Japan's coastal waters.
However, Ocean Vision Legal's Naima Taafaki-Fifita said as well as being an environmental issue, it is also a legal and moral problem.
"By discharging these radioactive contaminants into the Pacific, Japan risks breaching its obligations under international law," she said.
"[The UN special rapporteurs] caution that this may pose grave risks to human rights, particularly the rights to life, health, food and culture, not only in Japan, but across the Pacific."
Taafaki-Fifita said it was a "deeply personal" issue for Pacific people who live with the nuclear legacy of testing.
In September, what is known as the "High Seas Treaty" received its 60th ratification which means it will now be legally effective in January 2026.
The agreement allows international waters - which make up nearly two-thirds of the ocean - to be placed into marine protected areas.
Taafaki-Fitita said it was important that Pacific priorities are visible and heard as the treaty gets implemented.
