Slow progress with legal attack on ocean mining

A CASE in which three Namibian fishing industry associations are challenging the granting of a mining licence to a company planning to mine seabed phosphate off Namibia's coast was again postponed in the Windhoek High Court this week.

With the latest postponement – the fourth since the case was filed at the start of November last year – judge Harald Geier on Tuesday ordered the environmental commissioner and the ministers of environment and tourism, fisheries and marine resources, and mines and energy to provide Namibian Marine Phosphates (NMP) with documents the company first requested from them two months ago.