Critical minerals News

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193 stories

Canada offers mines and more in $730b investment bid slammed as unsustainable

David Brown 23 Apr 2026
Excavations at the mine, which has been found to be the source of the pollution in two rivers in Karonga district. Image by Jordan Simeon Phiri for Mongabay.

Malawi government suspends coal miner’s license over river pollution

Charles Mpaka 20 Apr 2026
Pa Haw, father of Saw Si Paw, takes to the Salween River each morning to inspect their nets for fish, despite heavy metal contamination linked to mining sites upstream. Photo by Gerald Flynn/Mongabay.

Asia’s longest free-flowing river contaminated by arsenic linked to Myanmar mines

Gerald Flynn 20 Apr 2026
Bags of cobalt powder ready for export from Chemaf’s mines in the DRC. Image by Didier Makal/Mongabay.

Virtus Minerals signs first major deal under US-DRC critical minerals partnership

Ashoka Mukpo 17 Apr 2026
A squat lobster in the deep sea.

Deep-sea wildernesses are more important than the promise of seafloor mining (analysis)

Andrew D. Thaler 14 Apr 2026

Repeated failures expose gaps in Indonesia’s nickel waste management

Hans Nicholas Jong 13 Apr 2026

Argentina approves Milei’s bill that eases protections for glaciers despite environmental backlash

Associated Press 9 Apr 2026
Collage of the 24 new Amphipod species identified in Clarion-Clipperton Zone, CC BY, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton

24 new species found in ocean zone eyed for battery metals mining

Liz Kimbrough 9 Apr 2026
Nickel mining on Manuran Island. Image courtesy of Auriga Nusantara.

Indonesia’s deforestation surges 66% in 2025, reversing years of decline

Hans Nicholas Jong 3 Apr 2026
Dump trucks maneuver at Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park in North Maluku province, June 2024.

US-Indonesia trade deal slammed as ‘extractive colonialism’ over mining, fossil fuels

Hans Nicholas Jong 27 Mar 2026
Lubumbashi River, at the level of the Kalubwe bridge, where significant fish mortality was reported in November 2025. Image by Ruth Kutemba.

4 months after DRC mine spill, residents remain impacted

Ruth Kutemba, Elodie Toto 26 Mar 2026
The Diavik diamond mine in northwestern Canada. Image from Google Maps.

Canada invests $1m into mining exploration on Indigenous land

Shanna Hanbury 25 Mar 2026

China’s deep-sea mining fleet may also track US submarines

Elizabeth Claire Alberts, Kara Fox 24 Mar 2026

Vatican launches campaign to encourage divestment from mining industries

Associated Press 20 Mar 2026

Investigation links DRC air pollution concerns to major copper-cobalt plant

Elodie Toto 19 Mar 2026
Ibama (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) conducting an operation to combat illegal gold mining in Indigenous territory in the state of Pará, Brazil.

Mining rush for critical minerals threatens Amazon land reform settlements

Sam Cowie, Cícero Pedrosa Neto, Isabel Harari 9 Mar 2026

Malaysia renews Lynas Rare Earths’ license for 10 years, orders end to radioactive waste by 2031

Associated Press 3 Mar 2026
CHEMAF’s Etoile mine (formerly known as Kalukuluku) in Ruashi-Lubumbashi in the DRC. Image by Didier Makal.

US firm Virtus Minerals closes in on deal for crucial DRC copper and cobalt mines

Ashoka Mukpo 26 Feb 2026

Alcoa pays Australian feds $36 million for ‘unlawful’ forest clearing

Associated Press 19 Feb 2026
Artisanal cobalt miners in the DRC. Image by The International Institute for Environment and Development. Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic.

Scrutiny grows over DRC-US minerals deal, even as other African nations sign up

Elodie Toto 12 Feb 2026
A humpback whale breaching in Alaskan waters.

Indigenous concerns surface as U.S. agency considers seabed mining in Alaskan waters

Anita Hofschneider 11 Feb 2026
Luwowo Coltan mine near Rubaya, North Kivu. Image © MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Landslides claim more than 220 lives in DRC’s Rubaya coltan mining site

Didier Makal 9 Feb 2026
An artisanal miner holds up a fragment of copper-bearing ore.

What’s happening with the global treaty to trace critical minerals?

Aimee Gabay 3 Feb 2026

Peru to invest $7.6 billion to continue critical minerals extraction

Maxwell Radwin 30 Jan 2026
Bags of raw cobalt at the UTK artisanal quarry in Kolwezi. Image by Didier Makal by Mongabay.

DRC plans to export 100,000 metric tons of copper to the US

Elodie Toto 26 Jan 2026
A mine in Likasi on November 26, 2025. Image by Glody MURHABAZI / AFP).

In the race for DRC’s critical minerals, community forests are on the frontline

Didier Makal, Latoya Abulu 16 Jan 2026

Minerals treaty proposed by Colombia & Oman gets pushback at UN meeting

Aimee Gabay 9 Jan 2026
Indigenous people attend the People's Summit during the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30). Photo by Rafa Pereira/COP30.

Top 10 Indigenous news stories that marked 2025

Aimee Gabay 29 Dec 2025

South Greenlanders speak out on rare earths interests

Arina Kleist, Julia Rignot, Sandy Watt 11 Dec 2025
This sea cucumbers belongs to the same family as sea pigs and swims in search of food and to escape predators. Behind it is a stalked glass sponge.

Deep-sea mining interests raise alarms among Mariana Trench communities

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 10 Dec 2025

In Chocó, river defenders say race for energy transition threatens lifelines

Euan Wallace 8 Dec 2025
The Quilapilún solar energy plant, a joint project by Chile and China in Colina, Chile. Image by AP Photo/Esteban Felix.

Critical minerals dropped from final text at COP30

Aimee Gabay 2 Dec 2025

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