Mining the Pacific – future proofing or fool’s gold?

Prime Minister Mark Brown, who is driving this, also happens to be the tourism minister and the seabed minerals minister. He’s made it clear he wants the Cook Islands to be a leader in the industry.

“It provides the opportunity for our kids to be able to study at any university in the world without having to incur a student loan,” says Brown, who has a vision of following the lead of Norway in establishing a sovereign wealth fund.

“It allows us to have the type of health care that our people have to go to New Zealand or Australia for. It allows our young people the opportunity to live fulfilling lives here in our country, without having to go to other countries to ply their trade in an industry that doesn’t exist here.”

To those who say a country threatened by climate change risks becoming part of the problem, he argues he’s trying to find solutions.

“We know that for the last 20 years we haven’t been able to get the financing from the larger emitting countries, so we’ve got to look for ways to protect ourselves.”

But activist June Hosking isn’t convinced.

She’s from one of the outer islands, Mauke, with a population of just 300 people.

While the government has organised consultations with residents across the islands as well as the large diaspora in New Zealand, she says the potential downsides of the industry are not being discussed.

“People don’t like to rock the boat in the outer islands,” she says. “So, when we have these consultations, there’s only maybe three of us who would speak up.”

June says such is island life, many refer to the PM as just Mark. She also says his wife is married to her husband’s cousin.

But family connections don’t stop her being seen as a bit of a trouble-maker in asking questions.

“When locals say ‘Oh no, I stay neutral on [deep-sea mining]’, I say ‘you can’t drive very far in neutral’,” she laughs.

“There are times in your life when you need to actually make a stand for something – we are talking about our future here.”

Additional reporting by Lindle Markwell.

You can listen to Katy Watson’s documentary from the Cook Islands on Assignment on the BBC World Service Radio.