Oceans occupy more than 70% of our planet's surface and play a vital role for marine and terrestrial life.

In addition to representing the largest carbon sink, they are the largest ecosystem, containing a wide range of habitats and an enormous wealth in terms of their biodiversity. But because of its size, in latitude, but above all in depth, the knowledge we hold in the various scientific orders and scales is still minimal. The deep sea accounts for 60% of the entire ocean. Much of it is incognito territory, but a high lust for its exploitation has fallen upon it. The growing economic and geopolitical interest in seabed mining poses a challenge on a global scale. The Azores are not unscathed by this greed, so we have always assumed that it is crucial that the Regional Government position itself in a peremptory way, resisting the greed associated with this activity. In April, the Azorean parliament unanimously took the floor, imposing a moratorium on mining in maritime areas under the management of the Autonomous Region of the Azores.It did so after discussing the joint proposal of the PAN and BE, also responding to the various and growing appeals of the scientific community. In the Azores, fortunately, the precautionary principle prevailed and achieved. The Government of the Republic, on the other hand, remains unheard of on this matter, and has clearly not assumed a clear no to any deep-sea mining activity. Except only when, in 2020, the then Minister of the Sea – Ricardo Serrão Santos – publicly assumed his willingness to apply a moratorium, establishing a hiatus of 10 to 20 years, with the justification that "Mining in the deep sea has to be faced with great caution" because "There will be no mining without loss of biodiversity." He also tried to reassure that Portugal does not have the technological capacity to move forward with the exploitation of these resources.  But in this league, it's not the "little ones" who go to the game. But since then, successive socialist executives have sent out contradictory signals, without ever taking a clear and unequivocal position on this issue, by not determining a moratorium on extractive activities in Portuguese waters. This silence becomes even more glaring and dangerous when, as early as next month, the International Seabed Authority will begin accepting applications for permits from companies that want to move forward with deep-sea mining activity. This is too important a matter, the impacts and consequences for the entire marine ecosystem beyond any legislature. The risks involved in this extractive activity are various and of various kinds. The damage, these, will be irreversíveis.Com 1.7 million km Portugal's exclusive economic zone is the fifth largest in the European Union, with the Azores accounting for more than half of this maritime territory. Having no individual decision-making capacity to intervene with the UN and the International Seabed Authority in imposing a moratorium, one cannot understand the glaring silence that prevails at the national level, given the size and importance of the area under our control. Or rather, "one understands" because in this case silence can be worth even gold...