Environment / Mining

Action, and further reading on critical minerals.

Ramped-up demand for critical raw materials will cost the earth rather than save the world, concludes Vanessa Baird. And how much do we really need?

There are better ways than digging ourselves deeper into a mining hole.

Corruption, pollution and child labour have long blighted the DRC’s cobalt industry. But is there any way of turning the country’s critical mineral wealth into a blessing rather than a burden? Cat Rainsford investigates.

Oasis of life – or zone of sacrifice? The fate of Chile’s culturally and environmentally rich salt flats may be decided by a lithium rush to double output. Vanessa Baird reports from the Salar de Atacama.

The government of Dina Boluarte is determined to inflict a hated copper mining project on the people of the Peru’s Tambo Valley. Why, asks Vanessa Baird?

Rising demand; Where from?; Big dirty business; Real needs?

What does the term ‘critical’ mean, and where will we find these minerals?

They are touted as our way out of climate chaos and essential for making the things we use, from mobile phones to electric vehicles. Vanessa Baird sets out to investigate critical minerals – and the rush to get them.

State and corporate interests across Northern Australia are steamrolling the rights and aspirations of Indigenous peoples in pursuit of economic largesse, Ben Abbatangelo writes.

Serbian villagers resist as lithium mining threatens to wipe them out, writes Matt Broomfield.

Report on environmental defenders in Ecuador by Michele Bertelli.

Report on violence in India by Nikita Jain.

Luciana Ghiotto, Bettina Müller and Lucía Barcena examine how Europe’s attempts to secure the raw materials for green technologies are following a tried and tested path across the Global South.

Nick Dowson looks at the figures.

A mining company wants to extract billions of dollars from Greenland’s government as compensation for a defeated rare earth mining project. Sebastian Skov Andersen reports on the case that’s divided the region.

Graeme Green speaks to the Indigenous activist about the dangerous fight to protect his people’s land from destructive mining in the Brazilian Amazon.

When the transnational giant decided to dig for lithium in Serbia it was met by widespread protests. But beyond the people’s rebellion lie deeper questions of imperialism, environmentalism and ‘green’ tech. Andrej Ivančić and Sergey Steblev inspect them in this cautionary tale.

A vast area of Namibia and Botswana is under threat from oil and gas exploration. Devastating consequences are feared for the people, wildlife and natural environment. Graeme Green reports on the fight to keep Kavango alive.

Roxana Olivera reports on the indigenous women who could make legal history by holding a Canadian mining company to account for its operatives overseas.