A window into what we’re reading at the Stimson Center’s Environmental Security Program

Final Version of Global Critical Minerals Treaty Stripped of Traceability Measures (Mongabay)

At the seventh U.N. Environment Assembly in December 2025, Colombia and Oman jointly proposed a legally binding international treaty to create traceability and due diligence mechanisms across global mineral supply chains. Their proposal faced resistance from multiple countries including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Chile, and Uganda, and ultimately resulted in a watered-down nonbinding resolution on mineral governance that excluded traceability provisions entirely.

Experts cite several obstacles to implementing comprehensive traceability. One set of problems is  the mixing of minerals from different sources in global markets, and a lack of origin data for recycled materials mined decades ago, There are also insufficient commercial incentives to justify expensive tracking systems, and an active resistance from actors who benefit from supply chain opacity. Robust measures also fell victim to weakening global multilateral cooperation is under threat. In recent years, the US has withdrawn from over 60 treaties and multilateral organizations, and resource-rich nations argue traceability measures impact their sovereignty to extract minerals. The challenges to critical mineral supply chains are increasingly framed from a national security perspective, rather than cooperation. 

READ | Preventing a “Green Resource Curse”: Opportunities and Risks of Mining in the Global Energy Transition

Nature Defenders in Honduras on Alert as Trump Pardons Ex-President (The Guardian)

Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was extradited to the US in 2022, and after trial he was sentenced to 45 years for conspiring to smuggle over 400 tons of cocaine. US President Donald Trump’s recent pardon of Hernández has raised numerous concerns, including  amongst environmental defenders in Honduras—one of the world’s most dangerous countries for environmental activists.

At present, Honduras holds the unenviable record for total number of killings of land and environmental defenders in Central America, with at least 155 murders of defenders documented between 2012 and 2024. Selective justice drives violence in the country, especially in a landscape in which a few wealthy families control much of the economy and advance extractive industries like mining, hydroelectric projects, and palm oil production. Local activists interpret the pardon as a reinforcement of a crisis of impunity, in which more than 90% of human rights violations go unpunished, and thus leave defenders feeling increasingly vulnerable and without protection.

READ | Unsung Sheroes, Climate Action, and the Global Peace and Security Agendas

Landmark UK Assessment Identifies Ecosystem Collapse as Security Threat (Mongabay)

This week, the UK government issued a nationally security assessment which formally recognizes global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as direct threats to Britain’s security. The analysis uses probabilistic reasoning tools applied to geopolitical risks, and concludes with high confidence that ecosystem degradation noy only threatens UK prosperity, but also will likely intensify through mid-century. Cascading security risks working through multiple pathways including food insecurity, migration pressures, conflict, and pandemic threats, are at the center of the assessment’s conclusions.

Degraded ecosystems reduce food production, destabilize fragile states through water scarcity, enable organized crime exploitation of resource shortages, and increase zoonotic disease transmission risks. The report highlights six critical ecosystems whose collapse would have outsized global effects: the Amazon rainforest, Congo Basin, boreal forests in Russia and Canada, the Himalayas, and coral reefs and mangroves in Southeast Asia. While the timing of intense degradation and collapse remains uncertain, some systems (like coral reefs) could begin collapsing within the next decade. Analysts also concluded that ecosystem protection and restoration is more reliable and cost-effective than relying solely on technological innovation to meet the crisis.

READ | Climate Change and National Security Strategies: Assessing a Growing Trend