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The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
Showing posts from category minerals.
  • New Constitution Could Help Chile Avert the Lithium Curse

    ›
    December 3, 2020  //  By Matthew Gallagher
    shutterstock_1556903237

    Chile is on the cusp of a new era. Just as its lithium—a common element of energy storage technology, which is itself a critical component of the clean energy transition—is experiencing a rise in global market demand, Chilean citizens have called for a new constitution.

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  • Many Companies Struggle to Comply with Conflict Mineral Reporting Rules

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    Reading Radar  //  September 25, 2020  //  By Cindy Zhou
    Conflict Minerals

    “The exploitation of the mining and trade of conflict minerals in the eastern DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] has contributed to instability, violence, displacement of people, and severe human rights abuses,” says the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its annual report, Conflict Minerals: Actions Needed to Assess Progress Addressing Armed Groups’ Exploitation of Minerals. The report examines a sample of filings from 1,083 companies that submitted conflict mineral disclosures required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2019.

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  • Cobalt is Critical to the Renewable Energy Transition. How Can We Minimize its Social And Environmental Cost?

    ›
    Guest Contributor  //  June 17, 2020  //  By Bianca Nogrady

    This is a Gecamines owned artisanal cobalt mining site

    This article was originally published on Ensia.

    Its name conjures an image of vivid deep blues. But when cobalt is dug out of the ground in ore form, there’s barely a hint of the rich hue it lends its name to. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which produces more than half of the world’s supply, it takes the form of heterogenite, a dull brownish mineral that could easily be mistaken for small clods of dirt.

    But people die for this mineral. Children suffer for it. Livelihoods, educations, neighborhoods, environments and personal safety are sacrificed for it.

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  • Fair Trade Seeks a Foothold in Artisanal Gold Mining

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    Guest Contributor  //  May 11, 2020  //  By Kristin Sippl
    7205603428_9118573680_b

    COVID-19 isn’t the only problem going viral. Economic insecurity is driving gold prices to record highs around $1,700 per ounce, causing levels of global mercury pollution to rise too. In the United States coal-fired power plants drive mercury pollution, but globally, the leading cause is small-scale ‘artisanal’ gold mining. Roughly 30 million men, women, and children in poor countries depend on mining for subsistence incomes. Unfortunately, the cheapest and easiest way to mine gold uses mercury, a highly toxic heavy metal the United Nations is striving to eliminate.

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  • Geoff Dabelko and Sharon Burke on Environmental Peacebuilding in an Era of Great Power Competition

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    Friday Podcasts  //  February 7, 2020  //  By Eliana Guterman

    Dabelko_Burke United States and China are on the road to war, said Senior Advisor of New America’s Resource Security Program, Sharon Burke in this week’s Friday Podcast. “And if you’re an environmental peacebuilder and you’re not thinking about that, you might want to,” she added. She spoke with Geoffrey Dabelko, Professor at Ohio University and Senior Advisor to ECSP, at the first ever International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding in October 2019 at the University of California, Irvine. It’s a war we can’t afford, said Burke. “But we’re not doing anything to avoid it at the moment, in my opinion, other than deterrence.”

    MORE
  • Great Power Resource Competition in a Changing Climate: New America’s Natural Security Index

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    Guest Contributor  //  January 13, 2020  //  By Francis Gassert & Wyatt Scott

    Late last year, Reuters reported that the U.S. Defense Department plans to fund mining and processing operations for rare earth elements—a class of minerals for which China dominates the global market, producing over 80 percent of the world’s supply. In the past, China has restricted exports of rare earths, and recently threatened to do so again. Even with a phase one trade deal hammered out between the United States and China, natural resources are likely to remain a point of geopolitical tension.

    MORE
  • Lisa Palmer, Mongabay

    Precision conservation: High tech to the rescue in the Peruvian Amazon

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    August 28, 2019  //  By Wilson Center Staff
    gold-mining-along-the-MDD-river_2004

    The original version of this article, by Lisa Palmer, appeared on Mongabay.

    The mother capybara and her three babies chew on grasses along the Los Amigos River as we drift near. Around a bend, white caimans fortify each sandbar, mouths open, waiting. Kingfishers plunge into the water to retrieve a morning meal, as oropendolas fly overhead. Spider monkeys and red howlers balance in the treetops of the soaring canopy 30 to 60 meters (100 to 200 feet) high that lines both riverbanks.

    MORE
  • China’s Demand for Raw Materials Harms Communities Around the World

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    China Environment Forum  //  January 23, 2019  //  By Truett Sparkman
    Logging  Truck

    The Solomon Islands’ “commercially available forests will be gone in about 15 years” due to deforestation, said Lela Stanley, a Policy Advisor for Global Witness’ Asia Forests team at the Wilson Center’s recent China Environment Forum event. It looks like they are logging about 20 times faster than they should for the logging to be sustainable, she added. While timber from the islands is exported to China—the world’s largest importer and consumer of timber products—local residents and communities bear the brunt of the environmental cost of lost ecosystem services suffered at the hands of the timber trade. And they aren’t alone. China’s insatiable demand for raw materials and its harmful resource extraction practices wreak havoc on the ecosystems of its many producer countries.

    MORE
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