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Hidden biodiversity costs of a deep-sea mining moratorium

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Calls to ban deep-sea mining aim to protect poorly known ocean ecosystems, but a global modelling study shows that a moratorium could intensify nickel extraction in some of the Earth’s most biodiverse tropical regions.

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Fig. 1: Nickel laterite mining in Sulawesi, Indonesia.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Valerio Barbarossa

  2. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Valerio Barbarossa

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  1. Valerio Barbarossa
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Valerio Barbarossa.

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Barbarossa, V. Hidden biodiversity costs of a deep-sea mining moratorium.
Nat Ecol Evol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03077-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03077-3

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