Namibia greenlights controversial project to dredge phosphate from seabed

Namibia's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism issued an Environmental Clearance Certificate on August 5 letting Namibian Marine Phosphate dredge roughly 2,234 square kilometers of Atlantic seabed off Walvis Bay for phosphate, used in fertilizer production. The approval follows a decade-long legal fight in which Namibia's High Court had already found the company mined and sampled without proper authorization back in 2021.

Critics, including a Windhoek academic and the nonprofit Ocean Conservation Namibia, warn the dredging targets fish spawning grounds within one of the world's most productive upwelling ecosystems, threatening a fisheries sector that the FAO says supports over 280,000 Namibian livelihoods and generated $794 million in exports last year. That sector employs about 20,000 people directly; the mining project is projected to create roughly 2,000.

The company, 85% owned by an Omani mining firm's Namibian subsidiary, declined to comment beyond pointing to its own website's FAQ, which asserts the dredging will have no significant impact on the marine ecosystem or fishing industry. A retired Namibian fisheries scientist says the company's own impact assessments never properly tested whether heavy metals in seabed sediment could enter the food chain.

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