Johanna Sydow and Nsama Chikwanka, Project Syndicate, 5/12/2025
Johanna Sydow is Head of the International Environmental Policy Division at the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
Nsama Chikwanka is National Director of Publish What You Pay Zambia.
As governments weaken environmental protections to promote new mining projects, the global scramble for critical minerals is deepening social divides and harming vital ecosystems. Only reduced consumption and robust, enforceable rules can prevent long-term harm and protect basic human rights.
A view of the dismantled remains of an illegal gold mining camp "Mega 12", during a police operation to destroy illegal machinery and equipment in the Amazon jungle in the Madre de Dios region, in south-eastern Peru, on March 5, 2019. - Illegal gold mining in the Amazon has reached "epidemic" proportions in recent years, causing damage to pristine forest and waterways and threatening indigenous communities. Photo by GUADALUPE PARDO / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
BERLIN – The environmental and human toll of mineral extraction is becoming clearer – and more alarming – by the day. Roughly 60% of Ghana’s waterways are now heavily polluted due to gold mining along riverbanks. In Peru, many communities have lost access to safe drinking water after environmental protections were weakened and regulatory controls were suspended to facilitate new mining projects, contaminating even the Rímac River, which supplies water to the capital, Lima.
These environmental crises are exacerbated by deepening inequality and social divides in many mining-dependent countries. The Global Atlas of Environmental Justice has documented more than 900 mining-related conflicts around the world, about 85% of which involve the use or pollution of rivers, lakes, and groundwater. Against this backdrop, major economies are rapidly reshaping resource geopolitics.
The United States, while attempting to stabilize the fossil-fuel-based global economy, is also scrambling to secure the minerals it needs for electric vehicles, renewable energy, weapons systems, digital infrastructure, and construction, often through coercion and aggressive negotiating tactics. In its quest to reduce dependence on China, which dominates the processing of rare-earth elements, environmental and humanitarian considerations are increasingly brushed aside.
Saudi Arabia is likewise positioning itself as a rising power in the minerals sector
as part of its efforts to diversify away from oil, forging new partnerships – including with the US – and hosting a high-profile mining conference.
At the same time, the Kingdom is actively undermining progress in other
multilateral fora, including this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Brazil (COP30)
and the ongoing pre-negotiations of the UN Environment
Assembly (UNEA7).
In
Europe, industry groups are lobbying for further deregulation, with fossil-fuel
companies like ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, and Siemens using misleading tactics to undermine newly established mechanisms designed to protect
the rights of communities in resource-producing regions. We should be worried
that the companies and countries which helped drive global warming,
environmental degradation, and human-rights abuses now seek to dominate the
mineral sector. Allowing them to do so will put all of humanity, not just
vulnerable populations, at risk.
Governments
must not remain passive. They must reclaim responsibility for steering the
primary driver of mining expansion: demand. Reducing material consumption, especially in developed
countries, remains the most effective way to protect vital ecosystems and prevent
the long-term harms that extraction inevitably causes.
Yet
despite overwhelming evidence that ramping up resource extraction threatens
water supplies and public safety, governments around the world are weakening
environmental protections in a bid to lure foreign investment, thereby
endangering the very ecosystems that sustain all life on Earth. From an
economic perspective, this approach is profoundly short-sighted.
In fact, recent research shows that responsible practices are not just morally right but economically sound. A new report by the UN Development Programme, based on five years of data from 235 multinationals, shows that companies that strengthen their human-rights record tend to perform better over the long run. Governments should therefore be wary of industry claims that profitability requires rolling back environmental regulations or ignoring human rights. When people cannot trust political leaders to protect their rights, they are highly likely to resist, with the resulting social conflict causing investment to falter.
The backlash against Rio Tinto’s Jadar lithium-mining project in Serbia is a prime example. Many Serbians believed their government was putting corporate interests first by pushing ahead with the project despite its failure to meet even basic sustainability standards. The public outcry halted development and left the company facing steep losses.
Only robust legal frameworks, backed by effective enforcement, can create the conditions for stable and rights-respecting development. That means safeguarding Indigenous rights; ensuring the free, prior, and informed consent of all affected communities; protecting water resources; undertaking spatial planning, establishing no-go zones; and conducting independent, participatory, and transparent social and environmental impact assessments. Given today’s heightened geopolitical tensions, multilateral forums such as COP and the UNEA remain essential for countering global fragmentation and advancing shared solutions. Mineral-rich countries should work together to raise their environmental standards, just as oil-producing countries jointly influence global prices. Through collective action, they can prevent a destructive race to the bottom and ensure that local communities, particularly Indigenous peoples and other rights holders, are heard.
At a time when clean drinking water is growing scarcer, glaciers are melting, and agriculture is increasingly under threat, coordinated international action is no longer optional. A resolution that Colombia and Oman introduced for December’s UNEA, calling for a binding minerals treaty, represents an important step toward fairer global standards. Initiated by Colombia and co-sponsored by countries like Zambia, which understand all too well the costs of extractive industries, the proposal calls for cooperation across the entire mineral production chain to reduce environmental harm and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples and other affected communities.
By placing responsibility on resource-consuming
countries, it aims to ensure that the burden of reform does not fall solely on
mineral-producing economies. Importantly, it also addresses the dangers
posed by tailings dams and other mining waste, which have led to devastating
failures and hundreds of deaths. Taken together, these measures offer a
rare opportunity to begin correcting the inequalities that have long defined
mineral extraction. All countries, especially mineral producers that have
historically been excluded from the negotiating table, should seize this
moment. UNEA7 provides a window for achieving resource justice.
