RIASSUNTO
ABSTRACT
The shortage of metals around the world has brought about renewed interest in the development of seafloor massive sulfide (SMS). There being no precedent for SMS development, then a lot of problems are concerned about. Among them, these are problems that must be overcome for successful development, and others that challenge the idea of development itself. The former are standard problems attendant on all new developments. While the latter are new problems arising as the result of increasing diversity of ocean use, and will require considering possible trade-offs with ocean mining and another activities such as bioprospecting. Given to those backgrounds, as part of an examination of the trade-off problem between SMS development and the other activities, the authors examined SMS development techniques, possible impacts on organisms, and the legal framework for bioprospecting. In consequence, they discovered that the respective knowledge bases were not only inadequate, but that a three-way deadlock situation prevails.
INTRODUCTION
Currently, there are some activities that prepare for the commercial mining of SMS. A preparation of commercial mining of the deep sea was conducted in the past, however it has failed. Consequently, if it were done successfully, it is the first case. As it is the first case, developers must consider variety of possible problems. For example, though the problem of the trade-off between the bioprospecting and the mining did not consider in the past, present developers have to pay attention. The present authors describe the progress of development technologies, the influences of mining on the bioprospecting, and legal framework of it. In the introduction, current states of SMS development is reviewed, and then outline of the problems are explained. Since 2000, strong expressions of concern over future shortages of metallic resources have become more frequent (Sawada, 2008).