Panel
Rare Earth and ‘Critical’ Mineral Extraction: From devastation to collective responses locally, regionally and beyond
ORGANIZED BY
Earthrights International, Rivers & Rights, KOMNASDESA Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia for Global Justice, Mekong Butterfly, Community Resource Center Foundation, ETO Watch, Mekong Watch, Asia Pacific Network of Environmental Defenders, Asia-Pacific Gathering on Human Rights & Extractives and Alyansa Tigil Mina
17-Sep
09:00-10:00
Meeting Room A
The devastating impacts of rapidly expanding mining on community and ecological wellbeing across Asia will be highlighted by focusing on implications for people along transboundary rivers of the Mekong region and small islands of Indonesia. Connections will be made to trade agreements being forged with countries in the Global North.
Overview
This session highlights the struggles of Indonesia's small island communities and the Mekong River communities against the harmful impacts of critical mineral extraction. In Indonesia, communities have secured landmark Constitutional Court and Supreme Court decisions protecting small islands from mining. In the Mekong Region, unregulated rare earth mining in Myanmar has polluted transboundary rivers, threatening communities' rights to water, health, livelihoods, and a healthy environment. These experiences underscore the need for stronger legal protection and regional cooperation.
The Mekong Region is impacted by unregulated rare earth mining in Myanmar, which has led to unprecedented contamination of transboundary riversheds, with devastating impacts on the rights of local communities, whose livelihoods depend on using the river and its resources. This toxic contamination jeopardizes communities' rights to access water, drinking water, and water for household consumption and agriculture, as well as rights to health and a healthy environment. Heavy metal contamination has caused negative health impacts on riverine communities in Thailand that rely on the Kok River.
Why it matters
This session highlights community resistance to nickel mining in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, and rare earth mining impacts in the Mekong Region. Indonesian communities have secured landmark Constitutional Court and Supreme Court decisions protecting small islands from mining. Meanwhile, unregulated rare earth mining in Myanmar has contaminated transboundary rivers, threatening access to water, health, livelihoods, and a healthy environment for riverine communities in Thailand.
Key questions
How does the increasing intensification of ‘critical’ mineral and rare earth extraction impact and jeopardize the community livelihoods, drawing from experiences of people in affected areas in Indonesia and Thailand, and what have been some of the most significant community responses to date?
Who should attend?
CSOs, NGO, researchers.
What participants will gain
Understanding the human rights and environmental implications of trade agreements and MoUs forged between the countries in the region and the Global North in relation to the mining sector and associated value chain (including Pax Silica).
Recognition of the urgency for authorities to hold all actors involved in the mining sector accountable for human rights violations, intergenerational violence and environmental harms, within countries and across borders
Understanding the importance of Indonesia as the largest archipelagic state, and small islands as a very important living space for local communities of Indonesia.
Understanding the transboundary impacts of mining across borders, such as the case of rare earth mining in Myanmar and impacts on the Kok River communities in Thailand.