Activists with Greenpeace groups in Kingston and Richmond protested against government plans to promote mining in the Pacific Ocean this weekend (April 24-25).

Volunteers with the group held banners aloft in Teddington and Bushy Park, joining dozens of others across England in a day of coordinated action opposing plans backed by the UK government to rip minerals from the sea bed for industrial use.

Industry and states are currently exploring deep sea mining as a way to acquire valuable minerals like cobalt, but the plans are opposed by Greenpeace and other environmental groups who say they will damage ecology on the ocean floor.

A growing number of companies including Google and BMW are also skeptical.

Katy was one of those protesting deep sea mining plans in Kingston and Richmond at the week.

"The deep sea might seem a world away from London, but in the year that the UK hosts the UN climate negotiations, we have a chance to prevent the needless destruction of our oceans," she said.

"We’re sending a message to the UK Government that they need to take ocean protection seriously, and end their support for deep sea mining."

Greenpeace said their campaign is ramping up, with hundreds of supporters had tweeted their opposition to the plans at Zac Goldsmith, the foreign office minister who was formerly an MP for Richmond Park.

Activists in the US meanwhile confronted a ship chartered by Belgian company Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR) as it conducted deep sea mining tests in the area of the type still supported by the UK government at present.

The group point out that the oceans play a vital role in sustaining life on the planet, and are becoming increasingly essential allies in the struggle to cope with the climate crisis.

Greenpeace have pointed out the lack of knowledge humanity currently has about how important the deep sea is in the wider ecological system, and received allies from an unlikely source in the shape of several major companies recently including BMW, Volvo, Google and Samsung.

"It's the fear that everything we do down there could have irreversible consequences.

"Those nodules grew over millions of years and if we take them out now, we don't understand how many species depend on them - what does this mean for the beginning of our food chain?

"There's way too little evidence, the research is just starting, it's too big a risk," one BMW representative was quoted as saying recently.

Katy for her part said that rather than extracting more finite resources, the UK and other governments should focus on a more sustainable economy in the face of the worsening climate crisis.

"Rather than a handful of companies exploiting the deep sea for profit, we need to prioritize reusing resources and moving to a sustainable, circular economy," she said.

"I don’t want the phone I use, the battery in my electric car, or the chips in my computer to be there as a result of damage to such a precious and beautiful ecosystem."