Keypoints:
- Sandpiper wins crucial environmental clearance
- Fishing industry threatens legal challenge
- Project still requires further approvals
NAMIBIA has cleared a crucial environmental hurdle for a proposed phosphate mine on the Atlantic seabed, reviving a project that has spent more than a decade at the centre of disputes over fisheries, marine protection and the country’s mineral ambitions.
The Environmental Clearance Certificate granted to Namibian Marine Phosphate, or NMP, for its Sandpiper project removes one of the most significant regulatory barriers to offshore extraction. It does not, however, mean commercial mining can begin immediately, with separate environmental approval still required for the project’s land-based processing operations.
Clearance revives long-delayed project
Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism lists the Sandpiper Marine Phosphate Project within Mining Licence 170, or ML170, as approved.
The clearance was issued on August 5, 2026 and is valid until August 5, 2029.
Sandpiper lies about 120km southwest of Walvis Bay. The mining licence covers approximately 2,234 sq km of Atlantic seabed, although the company says actual dredging would affect only a small proportion of that area.
NMP proposes using a trailing suction hopper dredger to recover phosphate-rich marine sediments from depths of around 180 to 250 metres before transporting the material to shore for processing.
The project is designed to produce about 3m tonnes of phosphate concentrate annually.
Phosphate is primarily used to manufacture fertiliser, making phosphorus an important input for global agricultural production and food security.
The approval nevertheless reopens a dispute that has repeatedly tested Namibia’s attempt to balance resource development with the economic importance of its marine environment.
Fishing industry threatens challenge
The Confederation of Namibian Fishing Associations has threatened to challenge the validity of the environmental clearance.
The Namibian reported that lawyers acting for the fishing industry body questioned how the certificate had been issued when information it said had been repeatedly requested from environmental authorities since 2022 had not been provided.
The dispute comes after years of legal battles over the Sandpiper project.
In 2021, Namibia’s High Court declined to invalidate ML170 but ruled that NMP could not carry out mining or other listed activities without a valid environmental clearance certificate.
The court also found that earlier trial mining and bulk sampling activities had been conducted in breach of conditions attached to the mining licence.
The August 2026 certificate therefore addresses the environmental clearance requirement identified by the court, while potentially creating the basis for another legal fight.
President reported to question clearance
The controversy has also reached Namibia’s highest political level.
The Namibian reported that President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah had raised concerns over the clearance during discussions involving senior government officials.
According to the newspaper, the president expressed reservations about Namibia becoming an ‘experiment’ for offshore mining.
No publicly announced presidential order has revoked the Environmental Clearance Certificate, however.
The reported intervention nevertheless highlights the political sensitivity surrounding commercial seabed phosphate extraction and raises wider questions about how Namibia intends to regulate an industry for which there is little established commercial precedent.
Company says footprint is limited
NMP rejects suggestions that its planned operations would involve dredging across the entire 2,234 sq km licence area.
According to Namibian Marine Phosphate’s project information, its mining plan envisages disturbing an average of about 1.7 sq km of seabed annually, producing a cumulative footprint of around 34 sq km over 20 years.
That would represent roughly 1.5 percent of the total mining licence area.
NMP says environmental studies carried out for the project found that the proposed operation would not have a significant overall effect on the Benguela marine ecosystem or Namibia’s commercial fishing industry.
Environmental organisations and some marine scientists dispute those conclusions.
Mongabay reported concerns from scientists and conservationists that seabed dredging could disrupt benthic habitats, generate sediment plumes and potentially mobilise metals contained within disturbed marine sediments.
Those potential effects remain contested rather than established outcomes.
Ocean Conservation Namibia has argued that large-scale marine phosphate extraction remains largely untested and says uncertainty over long-term ecological consequences should warrant greater caution.
The stakes are significant because Namibia’s coast forms part of the Benguela Current system, one of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems and the foundation of an important commercial fishing industry.
FAO estimates that Namibia’s coastal small-scale fisheries support more than 9,500 livelihoods, including about 1,500 people directly employed as fishers.
That is distinct from Namibia’s much larger inland small-scale fisheries sector, which supports hundreds of thousands of livelihoods.
Foreign investment adds another dimension
Ownership of Sandpiper also gives the project an international investment dimension.
Mongabay reports that NMP is 85 percent owned through an Omani-controlled entity associated with Mawarid Mining, while Namibia’s Havana Investments holds the remaining 15 percent.
The ownership structure does not in itself establish a political dispute over foreign control, but it places Sandpiper within a wider African debate over how governments balance outside capital, domestic economic benefits and control over strategic natural resources.
Namibia has increasingly sought to position itself as a major African destination for investment in uranium, lithium, copper, rare earths and other minerals.
Africa Briefing has reported that Namibia received more than 800 exploration licence applications as investor interest in the country’s mineral potential accelerated.
The government has also pushed for more value addition and domestic processing rather than relying solely on the export of unprocessed minerals. That strategy is reflected in new investments such as Namibia’s efforts to revive large-scale copper processing.
Sandpiper extends that resource strategy into an entirely different environment — the seabed.
Africa watches an unusual mining test
Marine phosphate mining at Sandpiper’s proposed scale remains unusual internationally.
A comparable proposal by Chatham Rock Phosphate to mine phosphate nodules from the seabed off New Zealand rejected by New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority in 2015.
That history illustrates why Namibia’s decision could attract attention beyond its own borders.
Sandpiper could become an important reference point for African governments considering how — or whether — to regulate extraction of mineral resources from their offshore territories.
But Namibia has not yet authorised an integrated commercial operation.
The offshore mining clearance is only one regulatory component of the wider Sandpiper development. NMP still requires environmental approval for its proposed land-based beneficiation and processing facilities.
That distinction will be central to what happens next.
The company has moved closer to developing Sandpiper than it has been for years, but opposition from the fishing industry, continuing environmental concerns and reported reservations within Namibia’s political leadership mean the dispute is far from settled.
Whether Sandpiper ultimately becomes a working mine could determine more than the future of one phosphate deposit.
It may also help shape how Namibia — and potentially other African coastal states — approaches the difficult question of extracting mineral wealth from beneath the ocean without undermining the economic and ecological systems already dependent on it.
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