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

Illegal and Unregulated Mining Runs Rampant in Venezuela (Inside Climate News) 

Located across the Venezuelan states of Amazonas, Bolívar and Delta Amacuro, the Orinoco Mining Arc is a center of mining illegal and unregulated mining activity. Mining has exploded in this area during the Maduro regime, as operations use high-pressure pumps and toxic mercury to strip vast stretches of Amazon rainforest, and choke rivers with sediment and pollutants. Recent activities even carved open-pit mines into the summit of Yapacana National Park’s sacred tepuy mountain. The environmental impacts on populations are also devastating: up to 90 percent of women in mining areas show toxic mercury levels that are linked to neurological damage. 

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

Marine Life Plundered in Unregulated Fishing Zone Near Argentina (The Guardian)

One of the world’s largest unregulated squid fisheries is located in Mile 201—a largely ungoverned strip of the high seas just beyond Argentina’s exclusive economic zones. Fishing hours there have increased between 2019 and 2024 in the area, as hundreds of foreign vessels arrive annually to plunder marine life. Yet this free-for-all poses serious concerns for other marine species as well. Crews on more than 50% of Chinese vessels and a fifth of Taiwanese vessels also have revealed the unreported capture and killing of seals, with culls sometimes numbering in the hundreds.

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

Nickel Mining Threat to New Raja Ampat UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (Mongabay) 

When Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago received a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve designation on September 27, 2025, the new designation adding to the status it won as a Global Geopark in 2023. Yet this dual honor highlighting the archipelago’s exceptional biodiversity is now under threat from intense pressure from global demand for nickel for electric vehicle batteries that is challenging the reserve’s conservation goals.  

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

Mexico’s Mercury Boom is Poisoning People and the Environment (Associated Press)

In Mexico’s Sierra Gorda mountains, soaring international gold prices also have created a mercury boom. Since 2011, mercury prices have skyrocketed from $20 per kilogram to between $240 and $350 per kilogram today. Most of Mexico’s mercury is trafficked to Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru for use in illegal Amazon gold mining operations that contaminate rivers and ecosystems. Yet the country’s adoption of a 2017 UN convention banning mercury mining and exports also allows artisanal mines to operate until 2032.

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

The Mining Town Funding Congo’s Rebels and Tech Giants (Reuters)

In April 2024, the M23 rebel group seized control of Rubaya, a mining town that produces 15% of the world’s coltan—a critical mineral worth used in mobile phones, computers, and aerospace components. Rebels imposed a parallel administration in the town, and placed a 15% tax on mineral traders that generates $800,000 monthly from levies. Thousands of impoverished miners in the town, however, still work 12-hour shifts in dangerous conditions earning just $5.15 per day.

The Mekong River’s seasonal floods nurture the world’s most productive inland fishery and irrigate rice paddies that feed millions. Approximately 70 million people live in the lower Mekong Basin, and 75% of them depend on fishing and farming for their livelihoods. But hydropower expansion and other development projects are fragmenting the river and disrupting its natural rhythms, with severe consequences for those living downstream.

“There cannot be a healthy planet without a healthy ocean. It’s urgent business for us all,” said U.N. special envoy for the ocean, Peter Thomson, at last month’s UN Ocean Conference (UNOC). 

Hosted in Nice, France, the conference brought together more than 15,000 political leaders, scientists, civil society, the private sector, academic institutions, Indigenous peoples, local communities, and philanthropic organizations with the goal of identifying innovative ways to finance and mobilize action for the ocean.  

A window into what we’re reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Declining Fish Stocks Threaten Lake Tanganyika Fishing Communities (Al Jazeera) 

For the millions who live on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, fishing is a way of life that has sustained generations. However, recent declines in fish production in the world’s largest freshwater lake have devastated Tanzania’s fishermen and prompted questions of the sustainability of the decades-long practice.