Policymaker Dashboard
Balance profit, community, and the seafloor — you can't max all three.
Your goal
Set four policy levers so that revenue, the community fund, stewardship and public approval all stay healthy — no single pillar may collapse.
- Read the four pillars at the top. Each starts at a baseline.
- Drag the sliders: royalty rate, protected area, monitoring spend, and return-water depth.
- Watch the pillars respond live. Each lever helps some and hurts others.
- Open the evidence cards to see the cited pro and con behind each lever.
- Lock in your plan to get a balance grade, then try to improve it.
Controls & grade
- Drag a slider
- Set a policy lever
- Lock in plan
- Freeze the levers and grade the balance
- Evidence card
- Read the pro/con source for a lever
- The balance grade rewards keeping all four pillars above their floor.
- A collapsed pillar (red) caps your grade no matter how high the others are.
- Grade = 60 % weakest pillar + 40 % average. A ≥ 65 · B ≥ 55 · C ≥ 42 · else D. A or B is a workable balance.
What you learn
- Higher royalties fund the community but can deter operators and cut revenue
- Protecting more area and monitoring more raises stewardship but lowers extraction
- The real trade-offs, drawn from the platform's cited pro/con evidence
Drag or arrow-key each slider and watch the four bars. Aim for grade B or better — the weakest bar decides most of it.
Share of revenue returned to the Territory
Share of the zone closed to mining
Independent science and plume monitoring
How deep processed water is discharged
Profit, community, and the seafloor can't all win at once. Keep adjusting.
What the evidence says
Economic Revenue
+ Royalty estimates from EEZ-area nodule extraction model $40–80M annually for American Samoa under proposed rates, comparable to current cannery revenue.
− Independent fisheries economists project $90–140M in long-tail tuna and reef-fishery losses if mining proceeds without buffer zones, exceeding royalty receipts.
Fisheries & Reef Protection
+ Proposed mining sites sit at 4,000m depth — well below the 200m thermocline that bounds American Samoa's commercial tuna fishery and reef ecology.
− Sediment plumes from collector vehicles travel 1,400+ km in modeling studies and may rise into mid-water layers where larval tuna and migratory species feed.
Climate Minerals Supply
+ Polymetallic nodules contain cobalt, nickel, and manganese needed for EV batteries and grid storage. Seabed sources reduce reliance on terrestrial mines tied to deforestation and human-rights concerns.
− Battery chemistry is shifting to LFP (lithium-iron-phosphate), which contains no cobalt or nickel. By 2030 LFP is projected to hold 40%+ of EV battery share, weakening the climate-minerals case.
Cultural & Customary Stewardship
+ Mining proceeds could fund matai-led marine conservation, customary fishing rights enforcement, and cultural archives that are currently underfunded across Tutuila and Manu'a.
− Village councils in Manu'a and Aunu'u have raised that the deep sea, including the abyss, holds spiritual significance in Fa'a-Sāmoa that cannot be compensated through monetary mechanisms.