John Oliver on deep-sea mining: ‘Time that we stop treating the deep ocean as something to exploit’

John Oliver: ‘There is a clear power disparity between an international mining firm hoping to make billions of dollars, and an environmentally ravaged island with a population of just 12,000 people.’ Photograph: Max

John Oliver dove into the controversial topic of deep-sea mining on Last Week Tonight, particularly in the environment known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a Europe-sized area 3 miles beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii. There is virtually no light in the CCZ and water temperatures in the CCZ can reach zero degrees celsius, “and yet, for such a seemingly inhospitable place, there is still an incredible amount of life down there”, said Oliver.

Scientists estimate that the CCZ contains over 8,000 largely unidentified species of fantastical deep-sea creatures, including a fluorescent sea cucumber dubbed a “gummy squirrel”, which Oliver delighted in. “Oh, I like that a lot,” he enthused. “In fact, I love that gummy squirrel so much, I want to cover it in sour dust and eat a bag of them while watching Nicole Kidman talk about the magic of the movies.”