The soiled secrets and techniques behind Myanmar’s rare-earths increase – DW – 05/24/2025 | EUROtoday

Lahtaw Kai attracts an imaginary mountain into the air along with her fingers and makes use of her fingers to dot it with holes.

“At the top of the mountains, they drill holes and then pour chemicals like ammonium nitrate into the ground to extract the rare earth minerals at the bottom,” the Myanmar setting activist instructed DW.

Lahtaw Kai — whose identify we have modified for safety causes — was illustrating the so-called in-situ leaching approach, which has been utilized for many years in mining uncommon earths in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state.

The course of begins on the prime of the mountains, the place chemical compounds are injected into the earth via a community of pipes. As the answer tracks downslope, it gathers uncommon earth parts, that are then collected in giant ponds.

At tons of of mining websites within the area, in-situ leaching is proving to be an enormous danger to each the setting and native villagers.

“The rare earth sludge dries out in wood-fired kilns, and areas close to the mining sites constantly smell bad,” stated Lahtaw Kai, including that she and her analysis staff can not keep there for greater than half-hour as a result of it is exhausting to breathe.

“But people are working there without gloves and masks. Companies don’t provide protection. So, the workers get sick and then [the company] fires them and brings in new workers,” she added.

Seng Li, a human rights activist presently based mostly in Chiang Mai, Thailand, has researched mining websites in Myanmar’s north and says the mountains was once inexperienced earlier than mining began.

“Now those mountains are very ugly, the river turned red. Some of the chemicals they use in the mining pools, they just dump into the waters,” he instructed DW.

DW met each Lahtaw Kai and Seng Li on the sidelines of a current tour of Europe, the place they have been campaigning for help of their trigger. They need to make Europeans conscious of what occurs in the beginning of worldwide provide chains that lastly result in merchandise comparable to electrical automobiles, wind generators, medical gear, and even weapons.

Rare earth parts essential industrial inputs?

Julie Klinger, assistant professor on the University of Delaware within the United States, explains that the time period rare-earth parts refers to 17 chemically comparable parts within the so-called periodic desk of parts.

“The thing that distinguishes these elements is their fantastic, magnetic and conductive, and in some cases thermal properties,” she instructed DW.

Also referred to as the “spice of industry,” uncommon earths can be utilized in comparatively small portions to boost industrial processes.

Neodymium: The metallic driving the vitality transition

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Dysprosium, for instance, is used as a catalyst in petrochemical refining, stated Klinger, and will be discovered in Myanmar’s north. The aspect with a metallic silver luster is important for battery manufacturing, growing their warmth effectivity and longevity, making it a key element for the inexperienced vitality transition.

Dysprosium can also be utilized in producing everlasting magnets able to sustaining a continuing magnetic subject wanted for contemporary energy mills in electrical automobiles or wind generators.

Nonprofit group Global Witness reported in 2024 that Chinese producers of everlasting magnets are sourcing uncommon earths from Myanmar.

Among the purchasers of China-made rare-earths merchandise particularly named by the report are world auto giants Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, Ford and Hyundai, in addition to wind energy corporations like Siemens Gamesa and Vestas.

Another report compiled by Adams Intelligence— a consultancy for strategic metals and minerals based mostly in Toronto, Canada — discovered Germany to be China’s largest buyer for sourcing everlasting magnets in 2024.

A name for accountable mining

China has lowered home mining for rare-earth parts, growing the exploitation of deposits in neighboring Myanmar.

Chinese imports of so-called heavy uncommon earth parts from Myanmar skyrocketed from their earlier highs of 19,500 tons in 2021 to 41,700 tons in 2023, the Global Witness report says.

“That’s like a page out of the US playbook from the 20th century,” stated Julie Klinger, referring to the US strategy of strategically not mining its home uranium deposits to safeguard them for later.

Lahtaw Kai says folks in Myanmar don’t desire the Chinese to proceed mining, and provides: “If the international community wants to continue buying these minerals, they should be responsibly sourced.”

Myanmar’s profitable commerce in uncommon earths  — price $1.4 billion (€1.2 billion) in 2023, in keeping with Global Witness — dangers financing battle and destruction in a extremely unstable area.

In 2018, Myanmar’s civilian-led authorities had banned exports and ordered Chinese miners to wind down operations, however since 2021, extraction has continued within the context of a ruthless dictatorship and widening civil battle.

In late 2024, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and its allied army forces wrested management of a lot of the mineral-rich area within the north from forces allied with the central authorities. KIO has been preventing for the area’s independence because the Sixties.

This energy shift has led to new negotiations between KIO and Chinese producers on taxing uncommon earth extraction.

While the KIO enjoys broad widespread help in Kachin and higher legitimacy than government-allied militias, the 2024 Global Witness report says that on “both sides, this largely unregulated mining is environmentally devastating, and the threat it poses to ecosystems and to human health is becoming ever more urgent.”

Will KIO implement extra accountable mining?

Lahtaw Kai and Seng Li demand extra public oversight of security on the operations.

“So far, civil society groups and the people have been excluded from the process of policy-making on mining […] international organizations and governments should directly engage with the KIO to strengthen their governance,” stated Seng Li.

And though Seng Li would not suppose rare-earth mining will be stopped, he stated situations should be improved to “benefit not only the armed actors and the Chinese investors.” The native populations and the state ought to “share the benefits, through systematic and regulated processes.”

Edited by: Uwe Hessler