BANGKOK — A new satellite analysis from U.S. think tank the Stimson Center has identified 517 suspected mines along rivers in Laos, including major tributaries of the Mekong, Southeast Asia’s longest river, heightening concerns about contamination of waterways that sustain local communities.

Stimson has not ground-truthed the mine sites identified through satellite imagery, but Mongabay spoke by phone with several government officials in Laos’s southern border province of Attapeu, home to 188 mines in the data, who said illegal mining remains widespread despite recent crackdowns.

“We still see officials carrying out inspections and confiscating equipment” from illegal mines in Attapeu, said one government official who spoke to Mongabay on condition of anonymity due to the limited press freedoms in Laos.

The analysis shines new light on the scale of mining in river basins across mainland Southeast Asia. The issue previously caught the spotlight in northern Thailand earlier this year after dangerous levels of arsenic were found to be flowing downstream from unregulated gold mines in Myanmar’s Shan state.

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Dec. 3 (UPI) — Unregulated mining across the Mekong region is accelerating at a pace that environmental researchers warn is outstripping governance, enforcement and ecological safeguards.

From Myanmar’s jade-rich northern highlands to informal gold pits along Laos and Cambodia’s riverbanks, mineral extraction is expanding in some of Southeast Asia’s most fragile ecosystems, often beyond the reach of national law and outside public scrutiny.

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Satellite data show at least 27 new rare earth mines have opened across Laos since 2022, mostly in protected areas and many within the Mekong River Basin, raising transboundary pollution risks for Vietnam and the wider Mekong system.

New data show a recent proliferation of rare earth mines across river basins in Laos, potentially posing a transboundary water pollution threat to Vietnam and the entire Mekong River system. The new findings suggest that Chinese demand for rare earth minerals has led to the industry’s expansion into Laos, even though rare earth mineral extraction is currently illegal there.

Research from U.S.-based think tank the Stimson Center has identified 27 rare earth mines that have opened across river basins in Laos since 2022, including seven identified via satellite imagery analysis as having opened this year. Twenty-three of these mines appear to be in protected areas, but it’s unclear whether or not they’re operating with permission from officials.

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

But 10 years ago, local residents started noticing the patches of land that had been cleared on the lush mountains surrounding their town, which borders China’s Yunnan province. It started with one patch of land, where all the trees were cut down. Then others followed.

Soon locals saw heavy machinery being moved through their town, heading to those barren plots of land. Then workers started flooding in. They excavated the ground and left open pits, many filled with chemically-laced water, in areas once rich in woodland. The water near those sites was no longer clean.

It became obvious at that stage that the newcomers were looking for something underneath the ground – rare earth, which contains elements widely used in high-tech products like smartphones, computer components, electric vehicles and solar cells.  

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The closure of Myanmar’s biggest mines due to the post-coup conflict has contributed to an 80 percent plummet in export earnings from the sector over the last two years.

Monthly earnings from Myanmar’s mining exports have shrunk from more than US$150 million to only $30 million since the 2019-20 fiscal year.

Although on-off border restrictions imposed by China to limit COVID-19 continue to disrupt trade, much of this 80 percent drop is due to a halt in production at copper mines in Sagaing Region run by Chinese companies Wanbao and Yangtze, which revealed on May 6 that operations had been suspended since soon after the February 2021 military coup.

This has denied the junta a key source of foreign currency, the short supply of which has been indicated by the regime’s imposition of capital controls in recent months.

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The post Collapse in minerals exports robs junta of key revenue first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

The number of illegal rare-earth element mining businesses in northern Kachin State has now increased much greater than the previous years, according to local sources.

Locals say rare-earth mining was seen only in hilly border areas near Panwa before Myanmar’s political change in 2021, but the number of such illegal mining sites has increased since April 2021 and reached an unprecedented level throughout this year.

A local resident in Panwa said: “Before the political change, there were only two or three 3,000-gallon oil bowsers a day. In about April 2021, the number of such oil bowsers reached about 20 a day. But when I counted the other day, over 80 bowsers come a day. The mining in the mountains has spread out to the valleys of Chibwe. The locals are showing their opposition because their water supply and livestock breeding are being harmed.”

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Authorities in Laos have ordered a Vietnamese mining company to suspend its operations after it polluted local waterways, causing two rivers to run red, local media reported.

The Company of Economic Cooperation in Vietnam (Coecco) runs a mining operation in the Boualapha district of Laos’ southern Khammouane province.

When “red water” began flowing down the Sa-A and Xe Noi Rivers starting on June 21, the governors of Khamouane and the downstream Savannakhet provinces, along with the minister of Natural Resources and Environment, inspected three Boualapha district mining operations, local outlet Next Media reported.

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The post After Lao rivers run red, authorities order iron mine to stop production first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

When a riverbank subsided and gave way four years ago, Tran Van Bi’s house collapsed into a river in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Everything his family had accumulated over 32 years was gone in an instant.

“At that time, when I heard the sound of screaming, I ran back, only to see the roof of my house sinking into a fast-flowing stream,” said Bi, 60, whose old house was next to Vam Nao River in My Hoi Dong commune, An Giang province.

“I ran to find my wife and children and then like a lost soul, I didn’t know what to do.” Fortunately, his family members were safe.

The river swallowed a total of 14 houses that day. The subsidence forced another 106 households to relocate.

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The post In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, sand mining means lost homes and fortunes first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

The early onset of Cambodia’s wet season had seen the rain fall thick over Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, turning freshly cut paths through the forest into a near-impassible slick of churned-up mud. But the torrential weather had done little to deter local loggers, who rode out of the beleaguered protected area carrying stacks of unprocessed timber on ko-yun — elongated tractors used for transporting wood.

Over several days and nights in April 2022, reporters saw a parade of ko-yun and motorbikes, all laden with a reddish timber that glinted in the rain as they passed along a road that had been recently carved through the section of Prey Lang forest that falls inside Kratie province.

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The post Large-scale logging in Cambodia’s Prey Lang linked to politically-connected mining operation first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

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

But 10 years ago, local residents started noticing the patches of land that had been cleared on the lush mountains surrounding their town, which borders China’s Yunnan province. It started with one patch of land, where all the trees were cut down. Then others followed.

Soon locals saw heavy machinery being moved through their town, heading to those barren plots of land. Then workers started flooding in. They excavated the ground and left open pits, many filled with chemically-laced water, in areas once rich in woodland. The water near those sites was no longer clean.

Keep reading

The post Myanmar’s environment hit by rare earth mining boom first appeared on Open Development Mekong.