By (Eipéráng) Gregorie Michael Towai – Refaluwasch Community Member, Saipan, CNMI
THE next major decision affecting the CNMI’s ocean may be made without us — not because we were consulted too late, but because we spoke too softly and too separately. As federal interest in deep-seabed mining grows, the CNMI faces a choice: respond piecemeal, or learn from American Samoa’s clarity and stand in solidarity before the path is narrowed beyond recognition.
As discussions around deep-seabed mining intensify in the Pacific, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands again finds itself reacting to plans framed elsewhere. Federal agencies are exploring offshore mineral leasing while Indigenous communities, Chamorro and Refaluwasch alike, are left to respond within timelines and processes not of our own making.
In this moment, the CNMI would do well to look south, not to Washington, but to American Samoa.
American Samoa has drawn a clear line. Through a territorial moratorium and unified leadership, it has stated that deep-seabed mining is incompatible with its environmental, cultural, and subsistence priorities. That clarity matters. Even though the federal government retains authority in offshore waters, American Samoa asserted its values early and publicly.
The CNMI has not yet done the same.
This is not because our risks are lower or our relationship to the ocean is weaker. For Chamorro and Refaluwasch peoples, the ocean is not an abstract “resource.” It is a cultural landscape, a food system, a pathway of voyaging and memory, and a living archive of knowledge passed down through generations. Any industrial disturbance to the seabed threatens not only ecosystems, but continuity.
What American Samoa teaches us is simple: waiting is not protection.
Federal agencies will continue to say leasing is “only exploratory,” impacts are “uncertain,” and decisions will come later. But Pacific history shows how extractive industries advance — incrementally. Surveys become samples. Samples become pilots. Pilots become precedent. By the time communities are told a final decision is near, meaningful choices have already been narrowed.
American Samoa understood this and intervened early.
It also framed its position not as anti-development, but as self-determination, stewardship, and cultural survival. That framing matters in federal processes, where agencies are required to consider cultural impacts, environmental justice, and cumulative harm — but only if communities speak clearly and consistently.
The CNMI has an additional tool American Samoa does not: the Covenant. The Covenant recognizes local self-government and the preservation of land and culture, including the distinct identities of Chamorro and Refaluwasch peoples. Allowing offshore mineral leasing to advance in tension with community opposition risks reducing that promise to symbolism.
Time, however, is not on our side.
As of now, there have been 619 public comment submissions in this second round. That number matters — not because it is large, but because it is small relative to what is being proposed. Silence is not neutrality. Silence is how decisions of enormous consequence move forward with the appearance of consent.
The public comment period closes Jan. 12, 2026, immediately after the holiday season. Our communities know this pattern well. When people are stretched thin by family obligations, ceremonies, travel, and economic pressure, major policies are often advanced with the hope that distraction will do what persuasion cannot.
This is occurring while Pacific communities already face severe strain: economic hardship, rising costs of living, and an expanding military buildup reshaping land use and daily life across the region. As if pressure on people and land were not enough, deep-seabed mining now extends extractive risk into the ocean itself.
People. Land. And now the sea.
Elsewhere in the region, governments are cautious or silent. Some have called for pauses or moratoriums; others are watching closely without committing. That silence should not be mistaken for approval. It reflects uncertainty and power imbalance — realities smaller jurisdictions know well.
This is why territorial solidarity matters.
When Pacific territories align, we move from isolated objections to a regional assertion that our waters are not sacrifice zones for experimental industries or distant supply chains. We remind the federal government that consultation without consent, and process without respect, will be challenged.
Solidarity also begins at home.
Chamorro and Refaluwasch communities need not agree on every issue to agree on this: decisions about our ocean must not be rushed through moments of distraction or framed as technical exercises divorced from real life consequences. The sea binds our histories together, even as our identities remain distinct.
The federal government may continue to plan. Agencies may continue to study. Companies may continue to lobby. But the CNMI still has a choice about how it shows up before Jan. 12.
American Samoa has shown that asserting values early does not weaken a territory — it strengthens it.
The CNMI should learn from that example. Not later. Not quietly. And not after the deadline has passed — but now, and together.
