The Impacts of Current Geopolitics and the New Mining Era on Indigenous Communities
By Galina Angarova, SIRGE Coalition
Terms like "transition minerals," "critical minerals," "development minerals," and "green minerals" are being used more and more to frame mining as essential for addressing the climate crisis. Energy transition mining is tied to technologies, such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels, touted as the ultimate solution to help replace fossil fuels and create a clean and sustainable future. However, this narrative, largely driven by the extractive industry interests, obscures the reality on the ground. Mining for minerals deemed essential for the energy transition, such as lithium, copper, nickel, and cobalt, follows the same extractive logic and methods as traditional mining, bringing with it well-documented human rights violations, particularly against Indigenous Peoples, biodiversity loss, deforestation, pollution, water depletion, disruptions of food systems, and environmental destruction.
These large-scale extractions are being pushed to a great extent on Indigenous Peoples' lands and territories. Recent studies showed that 54% of energy transition minerals are on or near Indigenous Peoples' territories. As extraction ramps up, Indigenous Peoples face increasing and disproportionate risks that threaten their livelihoods, health, well-being, and ecosystems, and yet, decisions continue to be made without their meaningful participation. Indigenous Peoples’ right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) as enumerated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is being bypassed.
Mining for Purposes Outside of Climate Action
Contrary to the mainstream narrative, what the world is currently experiencing would be better described as a period of energy addition, not energy transition. Renewable energy is not replacing fossil fuels; it is being added to the energy system alongside fossil fuel sources, both of which are exacerbating the climate crisis and putting the health of the planet at serious risk. As a result, global extraction and emissions continue to grow, without really solving the climate crisis and putting ecosystems and communities at greater risk. This pattern is not new. The world saw the same dynamic in the 20th century, when oil and gas were marketed as cleaner alternatives to coal. Yet, coal production continued to rise. According to the IEA, coal production increased tenfold from 1900 to 2022, even as new fossil fuels were added to the system.
Moreover, mining is not only expanding under the guise of climate action, but is increasingly becoming driven by geopolitics and military interests. The focus is no longer limited to powering renewable technologies. Critical minerals are now seen as essential to national security, political leverage, and AI infrastructures. For example, the European Commission emphasized in its 2025 Defense Readiness White Paper the need to secure critical raw materials not just for climate goals but also for advanced defense systems like drones and AI-based weapons platforms.
The use of minerals as geopolitical leverage is becoming increasingly explicit. The recent decision of the Trump administration to impose tariffs was followed by a global trade war. China, for example, responded by restricting exports of rare earth elements to supply the US, prompting American companies to seek alternative sources of supply. The US is also strategizing methods to gain political and economic leverage as geopolitical tension escalates. These include plans to source minerals domestically and quid pro quo deals that would strengthen control over minerals. For example, the Trump administration proposed a deal to Ukraine that would allow the US the right of first refusal to invest in Ukraine's projects and to prevent Ukraine from selling minerals to certain nations. Similarly, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has proposed a deal that would provide the US access to its minerals in exchange for security for its war-torn country. Minerals are no longer being used just for technologies, but also as tools of geopolitical power and bargaining chips for dominance over less influential countries.
In Canada, British Columbia has responded to global trade pressures with a counter-strategy, involving the fast-track expansion of mining projects. The province is moving ahead with new mining projects, including two mines planned in the territory of the Tahltan Nation without their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. One of these mines was flagged as high risk for tailing dam failures, posing serious risks to the environment and Indigenous Peoples in the area. Another project, near the territory of the Xatśūll Nation, is being planned without any environmental assessment and despite the opposition of the Indigenous Peoples in the area. This region is still recovering from the impacts of a tailing dam failure in 2014, yet new projects are being approved without meaningful consultation, consent, or environmental safeguards.
Fast-Tracking Mineral Extraction and Deep-Sea Mining
In the United States, the Trump administration is planning to fast-track at least ten new mining projects across the country, as part of its plan to expand minerals production. For Indigenous Peoples’ communities, this represents alarming new threats, creating dangers to land, water, wildlife, habitats, and cultural survival. If mining companies move forward with open-pit mines, ore-processing infrastructures, pipelines, and toxic waste dumps, it will destroy nature and drive species towards extinction.
Geopolitical tension and competition have also prompted the US to focus on deep-sea mining to stockpile minerals and metals from the seabed. Deep-sea mining is positioned as advantageous if conflict disrupts imports. However, the recent executive order from the Trump administration to move forward with deep-sea extraction ignores the significant environmental risks of seabed extraction, which threatens fragile marine ecosystems and undermines global efforts to govern the ocean commons responsibly. The order has drawn criticism for bypassing international frameworks, particularly the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
Many of these developments and shifting global dynamics reflect the decline in multilateralism and the rise of unilateralism and bilateralism. As global trade becomes more fragmented and competitive, states would increasingly rely on direct deals, regional blocs, and nationalistic policies to secure access to critical minerals.
This new era poses a complex and serious set of challenges and potentially devastating consequences for Indigenous Peoples, who are already disproportionately affected by extractive industries and climate change. As global powers like the US, EU, China, and Russia rush to secure their mineral supply chains, Indigenous Peoples’ communities worldwide are facing heightened threats of violence, land encroachment, conflicts, human rights abuses, and criminalization, as their rights and environmental safeguards are bypassed in the name of strategic urgency. In fact, Indigenous Peoples and their right to FPIC are absent in national or international plans, including in key documents like the EU's "Joint White Paper for European Defence Readiness 2030."
Deregulation of Environmental and Human Rights Safeguards
Furthermore, there is a growing push to weaken environmental and human rights safeguards in the name of economic competitiveness and the mineral supply chain. Deregulation efforts are making it easier for companies to operate without proper accountability systems, increasing the risks of land grabbing, forced displacement, biodiversity loss, pollution, and the criminalization of Indigenous land defenders. Earlier this year, for example, the European Commission introduced the Omnibus proposal, a proposal that would weaken several core elements of the EU’s sustainability framework. It includes narrowing the scope of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) by limiting obligations to direct (TIER 1) suppliers, despite well-documented risks that occur in the supply chains. At the same time, changes to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) would raise reporting thresholds and delay implementation timelines. Later, in May, yet another omnibus proposal additionally proposed delaying key requirements under the EU Battery regulation, postponing the enforcement of environmental and due diligence for battery producers. These rollbacks are presented as simplifications, but in practice, they erode corporate responsibility.
On the ground, Indigenous Peoples in countries like Brazil, the DRC, Indonesia, Argentina, and the Philippines are especially at risk, as these nations are from which the EU sources its raw materials.
Deregulation and the rollback of corporate accountability policies threaten to undo decades of hard-won progress in Indigenous Peoples' rights recognition and environmental justice. Without regulatory oversight, public disclosure, and accountability mechanisms, Indigenous Peoples' lands are in jeopardy of further exploitation and abuse. Indigenous land defenders also face more danger of criminalization, surveillance, and military violence. Indigenous Peoples have already suffered from a long history of colonization and are now facing new threats in the current geopolitical landscape, where global competition and corporate interests take precedence over protecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights, human rights, biodiversity, and ecosystems.
Multi-Pronged Strategy for Protecting Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
Protecting Indigenous Peoples' rights requires a multi-pronged strategy, from the strengthening of Indigenous Peoples' participation in decision-making spaces to adequately financing Indigenous Peoples' self-determined land protection strategies, which encompass spiritual, legal, and social strategies, to maintain the ecological and spiritual integrity of the land. We are living through times of unchecked corporate power, and these challenges will require that we collectively emphasize corporate responsibility, even when governments falter. We also have to continue working to unleash the power of informed and conscious consumers. To be successful, we will need to use every tool in our toolbox.
The toolbox includes strengthening knowledge and practice on key Indigenous Peoples’ frameworks such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent. It also means building power in communities, revitalizing and strengthening traditional governance systems, advancing and supporting alternatives to the current economic paradigm, creating economic opportunities, and protecting the livelihoods of Indigenous communities. Furthermore, it also requires engagement in decision-making at every level, from local, regional, national, to international levels, to continue advocacy efforts and educate policymakers, corporations, businesses, and other stakeholders. We need to shift dominant narratives by telling Indigenous Peoples’stories and creating spaces for mutual learning and information sharing. Building strategic alliances with all stakeholders, working with scientists, conducting independent research, and grounding Indigenous Peoples’ arguments in solid data are some of the key approaches. Most importantly, this work must always center on reclaiming agency and restoring the collective power of Indigenous Peoples.
