Minerals and metals used in technologies enabling much of the global energy transition and their applications are relatively new and require thought and reporting that probes questions related to their need, the growing social, human and environmental impacts mining for these minerals have, and the geopolitical tensions they may exacerbate.
To learn more, Mongabay speaks with Indigenous rights advocate and executive director of the SIRGE Coalition, Galina Angarova, and environmental journalist Ian Morse, author of the Substack newsletter Green Rocks. Together on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, they detail critical questions that journalists, policy makers, and citizens should be asking themselves regarding transition minerals.
Research published in the journal Nature indicates that as many as 54% of all transition minerals occur on or near land occupied by Indigenous communities. According to a recent United Nations report, extraction of raw materials could increase 60% by 2060, posing further human and environmental impacts.
Yet, Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), an internationally recognized right established by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), is not sufficiently applied or enforced in any nation, says Ian Morse. “This consent protocol…it’s not actually implemented anywhere.”
“The ultimate goal for us as Indigenous activists working in the space [is] to avoid repeating patterns from the oil and gas extraction and traditional mining in this energy transition,” Angarova says. “We’re at the cusp of this new industrial revolution, and we have opportunity with that [to] bring Indigenous peoples to the table to ask for their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.”
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Banner image: Image by Pedro J Pacheco via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED).
Mike DiGirolamo is a host & associate producer for Mongabay based in Sydney. He co-hosts and edits the Mongabay Newscast. Find him on LinkedIn, BlueSky and Instagram.
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Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.A transcript has not been created for this podcast.
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