Miners and environmentalists are locked in a battle over a multi-billion dollar treasure trove of metals at the bottom of our deepest oceans.
Now drama on the high seas miles above is heating up the fight.
One mining company claims Greenpeace activists disrupted a research expedition when they boarded its vessel in the remote Pacific.
As a result the campaign group could be thrown out of the UN body overseeing controversial plans to begin deep-sea mining.
Member states of the UN’s International Seabed Authority could choose in coming days to strip Greenpeace of its observer status within the group.
Greenpeace says the incident in question was a peaceful protest aimed at protecting a pristine ecosystem.
The mining company involved, The Metals Company, accuses Greenpeace of being “anti-science”.
It is the latest salvo in a long-running battle over access to a treasure trove lying on the surface of the seabed in some parts of the deep ocean.
Green campaigners say it will cause terrible damage to one of the few remaining ecosystems on Earth untouched by humanity.
The metals the companies want to exploit have built up over tens of millions of years into potato-sized lumps, known as polymetallic nodules.
Mining companies say the copper, cobalt, nickel and manganese they contain are crucial battery metals.
The International Energy Agency forecasts demand for these metals will soar as the world continues the effort to transition towards a low-carbon economy.
Green campaigners say there are sufficient supplies of the metals on land and no ocean mining should be allowed until the deep-sea environment, and the impact mining will have on it, are much better understood.