Over the last several years, the United States and the European Union have intensified efforts to secure the minerals needed for a clean energy transition.
Officials have fast-tracked new projects and signed deals with countries across the globe to ensure access to copper, cobalt, lithium and other minerals that are essential for building solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and other technologies.
But as investment grows, so does conflict throughout the sector. Protests and lawsuits are common at mine sites, which can lead to attacks against human rights and environmental defenders. It’s led critics to call for stricter regulations and better communication with local communities.
“Resilient mineral supply chains can only be built with respect for people, ecosystems, and local benefits,” Erica Westenberg, director of governance programs at the NGO Natural Resource Governance Institute, said in a report from the Business and Human Rights Centre.
Each year, the organisation releases the findings of its Transition Mineral Tracker, which monitors allegations of abuse by large-scale mining of bauxite, cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel, iron ore and zinc.
For 2025, the NGO reviewed 299 mining operations and their owners, counting 329 allegations of abuse — up from 156 the year before — tied to air and water pollution, public health problems, and labour abuse like poor working conditions and union suppression.
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For too long, powerful mining companies have polluted with impunity while ordinary families pay the price with their health, their land and their futures.
Anneke Meerkotter, executive director, Southern Africa Litigation Centre
There were also 61 cases of protests, 10 strikes and 44 lawsuits, the report said.
The allegations have increased in every region of the world, but nowhere has had more than in South America, which has seen 447 allegations since 2010, when the NGO launched the tracker. In 2025, the region saw 97 allegations.
The alleged abuses in South America commonly involve threats to Indigenous communities and a disregard for Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), a process in which residents are consulted about and approve a mining project before it moves forward.
The allegations also involve the health of surrounding watersheds, as operations dispose of tailings waste and water used in the extraction process.
In one case, the Cauchari-Olaroz lithium mine in Jujuy, Argentina, has allegedly disrupted natural water cycles, threatening to salinise Andean wetlands and Indigenous territories. The owner of the mine, Minera Exar, did not provide a comment to the NGO for the report.
Legal challenges against the soon-to-open Ariana copper mine in Peru allege the operation will endanger clean water access to more than 10 million people, with infrastructure interrupting water delivery to Lima and Callao. The operation could also contaminate sensitive wetlands, according to the Legal Defense Institute, a Peruvian NGO. Alpayana, the mine’s parent company, did not provide a comment for the report.
Another project scheduled to begin operations next year, the Curipamba–El Domo mine in Las Naves, Ecuador, has received backlash from communities alleging they weren’t adequately consulted about the risks of extraction.
Some residents have been accused of defamation and had their bank accounts frozen, according to Ecuador’s Ecumenical Commission for Human Rights.
“What is being sought is to control and extinguish critical and dissenting voices,” the commission said last year.
The project is being led by Curimining, a dual venture between Canadian companies Salazar Resources and Silvercorp Metals. In response, an attorney representing the operation provided the following statement for the report: “All constitutional actions filed against the Curipamba-El Domo project before local courts have been dismissed and/or declared inadmissible by local judges and by the Constitutional Court of Ecuador.”
The Transition Mineral Tracker also counted a significant increase in abuse allegations in Africa, rising from 45 in 2024 to 100 last year, largely due to the alleged poor working conditions at mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia and Guinea.
The DRC alone accounted for 56 of the 100 abuse accusations last year, according to the report.
Last February, the collapse of the Sino-Metals Leach Zambia copper mine released an estimated 50 million liters of toxic material into a stream that feeds into the Kafue river, endangering drinking water, fishing, irrigation and industrial use, according to the report.
It led to a lawsuit by 176 residents, with the support of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, a non-profit legal advocacy group. The parent company of the mine, China Nonferrous Mining Corporation, opposes the lawsuit, according to the report.
“For too long, powerful mining companies have polluted with impunity while ordinary families pay the price with their health, their land and their futures,” said the centre’s executive director Anneke Meerkotter in a statement.
In Asia and the Pacific, there were 62 allegations of abuse recorded in 2025, up 121 per cent from the 28 allegations recorded the year before. Meanwhile, in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, there were 35 accusations, up 106 per cent from the 17 in 2024.
The report urged companies to commit to human rights and environmental standards even when working in countries without them. It also said the companies should engage local communities in good faith during and after operations, using FPIC to ensure residents remain informed.
Benefit-sharing should also be integrated into companies’ policies to ensure mining projects create prosperity for workers, their unions and Indigenous people, according to the report.
Ultimately, human rights abuses are financially unwise for mining companies, the report concluded — another reason they should feel incentivised to introduce stronger policies.
“Disregarding risks for human rights and the environment does not save costs or increase competitiveness,” it said. “On the contrary, investment in human rights safeguards leads to resilience and stronger business propositions.”
This story was published with permission from Mongabay.com.
