So little money has been allocated to cleaning up the legacy of the South African mining industry that it will take another 70 years to clean up just a fraction of the country’s more than 6,000 abandoned mines.

There are roughly 6,100 “derelict or ownerless” mines scattered across South Africa, many of which can expose people and the environment to significant harm due to pollution of the air, water and soil.

• At the COP26 climate summit, U.K.

Pristine parts of northern Kachin State are under threat as demand grows for high-tech devices that rely on rare earth.

Main photo: The leaching ponds at a rare earth mining site in Kachin State, where toxic chemicals are applied to dissolve the metals. (PHOTO: Maran)

Kachin State’s Chipwi Township in northernmost Myanmar is known for its pristine forests and crystal-clear water.

The impoverished locals – who blame mining for the loss of arable land and destruction of the rural agrarian economy – want the Twickenham mine to open or forfeit mining rights.

Sekhukhune residents have given mining giant Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) until December to reopen a mine that was placed under care and maintenance six years ago or hand over its licence to the affected communities.

This is what it looks like when unregulated, illegal mining meets governance failure – a fire in a coal mine that has been burning for weeks, leaving nearby communities choking in the fumes. Perhaps most worryingly, nobody knows the extent to which fires may be burning underground.

What do noxious fumes, underserved communities, criminal coal mining rackets, governance failures and one of the largest corporate thermal coal producers and exporters in South Africa have in common? 

• The Democratic Republic of Congo is putting 16 oil exploration blocks up for auction, including nine in the peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale.
• Environmentalists warn that oil exploration and infrastructure for production could release huge amounts of carbon stored in the peatland and threaten the rights of local communities.
• The Congolese government says it needs to exploit its natural resources in order to generate income to develop the country, much as countries in other parts of the world have done before it.

Last month, the

Mining in the former homelands in South Africa remains highly contested. At issue is the tendency of many mining companies to trample land rights, negotiate deals with elites to avoid securing informed consent  while sowing division and conflict in poor rural communities.

MMG is facing the possibility of a prolonged disruption at its copper mine in Peru after failing to clear the site of all protesters in an operation that has further inflamed tensions with indigenous groups.

• Critics of the Indonesian government’s plan to build a new capital city in the coal-mining heartland of East Kalimantan province have long warned about the abandoned mining pits dotting the landscape.
• The government has now acknowledged that these will be a problem: it says it has identified 2,415 of these pits at the site of the new city, covering a combined area of 29,000 hectares (71,700 acres).
• It also says it’s been working to rehabilitate these decommissioned mines since 2021 — a revelation that has raised concerns that the public is paying

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)  and the Land Portal are launching a new blog series on the governance of land-based investments in the Global South. The series will explore practical strategies and approaches adopted by rights defenders and others to address common challenges surrounding these investments.