As the need for renewable energy increases, mineral mining in the Amazon is at a critical point

As the need for renewable energy increases, mineral mining in the Amazon is at a critical point

As the need for renewable energy increases, mineral mining in the Amazon is at a critical point

Gold mining is reducing Amazon forest cover in Guyana. Istel, 2022.

Illegal mining The search for critical minerals needed for the global transition to renewable energy is increasingly driving deforestation in indigenous areas of the Amazon.

In recent years, these illegal miners, who often work independently, on the move and in secret, have expanded their gold mining activities to include cassiterite, or “black gold,” a mineral vital to gold extraction Transition to renewable energy. Cassiterite is used to make coatings for solar panels, wind turbines and other electronic devices. Brazil, one of the world’s largest exporters of this mineralis now struggling to get this new threat to its Amazon forests under control.

The need for developing countries like Brazil to conserve their forests for the common good is at odds with the increasing demand for their resources in international markets. To make matters worse, both the switch to renewable energies and the… Protecting the Amazon are urgent priorities in global efforts to halt climate change.

However, increasing deforestation risks turning these forests from a carbon sink – where trees absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they release – to a carbon source, where trees release more carbon dioxide than they absorb when they are broken down or be burned.

Indigenous and other forest-dwelling communities are central to forest protection. In 2014, I lived for a year in Guyana and Suriname, two of the nine countries that share the Amazon Basin. I studied the effectiveness of international measures aimed at paying these countries to avoid deforestation.

I met with members of communities that have borne the brunt of the negative impacts of small-scale gold mining, such as mercury poisoning and loss of hunting grounds. For decades, gold mining, which threatens communities’ food supplies and traditional way of life, has been the main driver of deforestation in both countries.

Small-scale mining operations can harm both communities and nature. Gold mining, which involves extracting gold for export for jewelry and electronics, typically begins with the removal of trees and vegetation from the topsoil, facilitated by mechanical equipment such as excavators. Next, miners dig up the sediment, which is washed with water to extract any loose gold particles.

Typically, miners then add mercury, a substance that is known to be toxic and extremely harmful human healthto wash pans to bind the gold together and separate it from the sediment. They then burn the mercury using lighters and welders. In this process, mercury is inhaled by miners and washed into nearby waterways, where it can enter the food chain and poison fish and other species, including humans.

My new book, Forests of Refuge: Decolonizing Environmental Governance in the Amazonian Guiana Shield illuminates the colonial histories that created these countries. These stories continue to shape the land use practices of local people and forest users. Having seen the dynamics firsthand, I argue that this unresolved history limits the effectiveness of international action to reduce deforestation.

Some of the limitations of these policies are that they do not pay attention to the approximately five centuries of colonialism that created these countries. In this story, forests functioned as places of refuge and resistance for indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. I believe that the power structures created by this history must be addressed through processes of decolonization, including removing markets from their centrality in processes of natural appreciation and seriously considering the worldviews of indigenous and other forest-dependent communities.

But since 2014, deforestation caused by small-scale mining in the Amazon has continued and even increased. The global increase in mining, driven in part by the shift to renewable energy, suggests that changing these power structures may be harder than ever before.

Additional pressure

When Brazil cracked down on illegal gold mining in the 1970s and 1980s, miners moved en masse to nearby Guyana and Suriname, taking their environmentally destructive technologies with them. Illegal cassiterite mining companies are now following a similar pattern, showing that global efforts to reduce deforestation cannot simply focus on a single commodity as a driver of local deforestation.

My Working exhibitions that the challenge of mining-related deforestation in the Amazon is rooted in historically based, global power structures that make the Amazon and its resources available for extraction by industries and governments in wealthier countries. These groups of people are now trying to reduce their disproportionately high emissions through technical solutions and not through behavioral changes.

These tensions also have their roots in the willingness of governments and forest users in postcolonial countries such as Brazil and Guyana to respond positively and unconditionally to international demand for these resources.

In the Amazon, results are influenced by whether different groups of people have access to livelihoods that do not result in deforestation, such as those based on non-timber forest products. The situation will also be determined by the extent to which governments can work together to ensure that crackdowns in one part of the Amazon, such as Brazil, do not just spur deforestation elsewhere, such as Suriname.

Unless the power structure that disadvantages indigenous and other historically marginalized groups changes, the negative impacts of developing technologies to “save” the planet will continue to disproportionately burden these groups, even as their current way of life remains critical to supporting sustainable development outcomes is crucial.

This essay was originally published on The conversation.