'A different perspective': This top marine scientist is determined to resolve deep-sea mining's murky future

Brazilian marine scientist Leticia Carvalho will be the first-ever woman, oceanographer and person of Latin American heritage to lead the International Seabed Authority — and she says it "feels fantastic."

"I am very proud," Carvalho told CNBC via videoconference. "I think it is quite meaningful that someone new, fresh and with a different perspective is coming to take over."

The ISA, a little-known U.N. regulator that oversees deep-sea mining, is responsible for both the exploitation and conservation of an area that covers around 54% of the world's oceans.

Carvalho recently beat incumbent Michael Lodge to the top job in a bitterly contested election billed as a pivotal moment for the fate of a potentially multi-trillion-dollar industry. Her four-year term as ISA chief will start on Jan. 1, 2025.

Carvalho's election victory comes at a time of intense debate about the future of deep-sea mining and the world's oceans.

The controversial practice of deep-sea mining involves using heavy machinery to remove minerals and metals — such as cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese — from the seabed, where they build up as potato-sized nodules.

The end-use of these minerals are wide-ranging and include electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.

Scientists have warned that the full environmental impacts of deep-sea mining are hard to predict. Environmental campaign groups, meanwhile, say the practice cannot be done sustainably and will inevitably lead to ecosystem destruction and species extinction.

The ISA Council, a body composed of 36 member states, recently wrapped up a series of meetings in Jamaica as it seeks to draft a mining code to regulate the exploitation and extraction of polymetallic nodules and other deposits on