A satellite image of a rare earths mine site on the west side of the Kok River in Myanmar\u2019s Shan state, as seen on May 6, 2025 [Courtesy of the Shan Human Rights Foundation]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The term “rare-earth” is a misnomer<\/a>, because they are not actually scarce, but because they are only found in compounds, not as pure metals, and are difficult to isolate and purify. They are relatively plentiful in the entire Earth’s crust<\/a> (cerium<\/a> being the 25th-most-abundant element<\/a> at 68 parts per million, more abundant than copper<\/a>), but in practice they are spread thinly as trace impurities, so to obtain rare earths at usable purity requires processing enormous amounts of raw ore at great expense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scandium and yttrium are considered rare-earth elements because they tend to occur in the same ore<\/a> deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties, but have different electrical and magnetic properties<\/a>. All isotopes of promethium<\/a> are radioactive, and it does not occur naturally in the earth’s crust, except for a trace amount generated by spontaneous fission<\/a> of uranium-238<\/a>. They are often found in minerals<\/a> with thorium<\/a>, and less commonly uranium<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of their geochemical<\/a> properties, rare-earth elements are typically dispersed and not often found concentrated in rare-earth minerals<\/a>. Consequently, economically exploitable ore deposits<\/a> are sparse. The first rare-earth mineral discovered (1787) was gadolinite<\/a>, a black mineral composed of cerium, yttrium, iron, silicon, and other elements. This mineral was extracted from a mine in the village of Ytterby<\/a> in Sweden. Four of the rare-earth elements bear names derived from this single location. Commercial production in modern times describes the reserves of the rare-earth elements in terms of “rare-earth oxides” (REOs) containing mixtures of various rare earth elements in oxide compounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The uses, applications, and demand for rare-earth elements have expanded over the years. In 2015, most REEs were being used for catalysts<\/a> and magnets<\/a>. The global move towards renewable energy<\/a> technologies, such as electric vehicles<\/a> (EVs) and wind turbines<\/a>, along with advanced electronics, defence applications, and consumer electronics such as smartphones<\/a>, has caused increased demand for REEs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China dominates the rest of the world in terms of REE reserves and production; in 2019, it supplied around 90% of the global demand for the 17 rare-earth powders. The Chinese Government has placed restrictions on its supply and sales of REEs since around 2010 for various reasons. After United States president Donald Trump<\/a> escalated the trade war with China<\/a> in 2025, China introduced further restrictions, leading other countries with reserves to step up their exploration and production efforts. As of 2025, the US and Myanmar produce the second- and third-highest amounts of REEs, but Brazil and India have the second- and third-largest reserves of the metals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Satellite images reportedly identified 26 mines in rebel-held area of Myanmar next to China and two new mines near Thailand.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bangkok, Thailand<\/strong> \u2013 A surge in rare earth mining in rebel-held pockets of Myanmar supplying Chinese processing plants is being blamed for toxic levels of heavy metals in Thai waterways, including the Mekong River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China dominates the global refining of rare earth metals \u2013 key inputs in everything from wind turbines to advanced missile systems \u2013 but imports much of its raw material from neighbouring Myanmar, where the mines have been blamed for poisoning local communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recent satellite images and water sample testing suggest the mines are spreading, along with the environmental damage they cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSince the mining operation started, there is no protection for the local people,\u201d Sai Hor Hseng, a spokesman at the Shan Human Rights Foundation, a local advocacy group based in eastern Myanmar\u2019s Shan state, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey don\u2019t care what happens to the environment,\u201d he said, or those living downstream of the mines in Thailand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An estimated 1,500 people rallied in northern Thailand\u2019s Chiang Rai province in June, urging the Thai government and China to pressure the mining operators in Myanmar to stop polluting their rivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Villagers in Chiang Rai first noticed an odd orange-yellow tint to the Kok River \u2013 a tributary of the Mekong that enters Thailand from Myanmar \u2013 before the start of this year\u2019s rainy season in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Repeated rounds of testing by Thai authorities since then have found levels of arsenic and lead in the river several times higher than what the World Health Organization (WHO) deems safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thai authorities advised locals living along the Kok to not even touch the water, while tests have also found excess arsenic levels in the Sai River, another tributary of the Mekong that flows from Myanmar into Thailand, as well as in the Mekong\u2019s mainstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Locals are now worried about the harm that contaminated water could do to their crops, their livestock and themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arsenic is infamously toxic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Medical studies have linked long-term human exposure to high levels of the chemical to neurological disorders, organ failure and cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis needs to be solved right now; it cannot wait until the next generation, for the babies to be deformed or whatever,\u201d Pianporn Deetes, Southeast Asia campaign director at the advocacy group International Rivers, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople are concerned also about the irrigation, because \u2026 [they are] now using the rivers \u2013 the water from the Kok River and the Sai River \u2013 for their rice paddies, and it\u2019s an important crop for the population here,\u201d Pianporn said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe learned from other areas already \u2026 that this kind of activity should not happen in the upstream of the water source of a million people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thai authorities blame upstream mining in Myanmar for the toxic rivers, but they have been vague about the exact source or sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rights groups and environmental activists say the mine sites are nestled in pockets of Shan state under the control of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a well-armed, secretive rebel group that runs two semi-autonomous enclaves in the area, one bordering China and the other Thailand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That makes the sites hard to access. Not even Myanmar\u2019s military regime dares to send troops into UWSA-held territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While some have blamed the recent river pollution on the UWSA\u2019s gold mines, the latest tests in Thailand lay most of the fault on the mining of rare earth minerals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a study commissioned by the Thai government, Tanapon Phenrat, an associate professor of civil engineering at Naresuan University, took seven water samples from the Kok and surrounding rivers in early June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tanapon told Al Jazeera that the samples collected closest to the border with Myanmar showed the highest levels of heavy metals and confirmed that the source of the contamination lay upstream of Thailand in Shan state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Significantly, Tanapon said, the water samples contained the same \u201cfingerprint\u201d of heavy metals, and in roughly the same concentrations, as had earlier water samples from Myanmar\u2019s Kachin State, north of Shan, where rare earth mining has been thriving for the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe compared that with the concentrations we found in the Kok River, and we found that it has a very good correlation,\u201d Tanapon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cConcentrations in the Kok River can be attributed about 60 to 70 percent \u2026 [to] rare earth mining,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The presence of rare earth mines along the Kok River in Myanmar was first exposed by the Shan Human Rights Foundation in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Satellite images available on Google Earth showed two new mine sites inside the UWSA\u2019s enclave on the Thai border developed over the past one to two years \u2013 one on the western slope of the river, another on the east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The foundation also used satellite images to identify what it said are another 26 rare earth mines inside the UWSA\u2019s enclave next to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All but three of those mines were built over the past few years, and many are located at the headwaters of the Loei River, yet another tributary of the Mekong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Researchers who have studied Myanmar\u2019s rare earth mining industry say the large, round mineral collection pools visible in the satellite images give the sites away as rare earth mines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Shan Human Rights Foundation says villagers living near the new mines in Shan state have also told how workers there are scooping up a pasty white powder from the collection pools, just as they have seen in online videos of the rare earth mines further north in Kachin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patrick Meehan, a lecturer at the University of Manchester in the UK who has studied Myanmar\u2019s rare earth mines, said reports emerging from Shan state fit with what he knows of similar operations in Kachin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe way companies tend to operate in Myanmar is that there is zero pre-mining environmental assessment, zero environmental monitoring, and there are none of those sorts of regulations or protections in place,\u201d Meehan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The leaching process being used involves pumping chemicals into the hillsides to draw the rare earth metals out of the rock. That watery mixture of chemicals and minerals is then pumped out of the ground and into the collection pools, where the rare earths are then separated and gathered up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without careful attention to keeping everything contained at a mine, said Meehan, the risks of contaminating local rivers and groundwater could be high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rare earth mines are situated close to rivers because of the large volumes of water needed for pumping the extractive chemicals into the hills, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The contaminated water is then often pumped back into the river, he added, while the groundwater polluted by the leaching can end up in the river as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is definitely scope for that,\u201d said Meehan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He and others have tracked the effect such mines have already had in Kachin \u2013 where hundreds of mining sites now dot the state\u2019s border with China \u2013 from once-teeming streams now barren of fish to rice stalks yielding fewer grains and livestock falling ill and dying after drinking from local creeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a 2024 report, the environmental group Global Witness called the fallout from Kachin\u2019s mining boom \u201cdevastating\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ben Hardman, Mekong legal director for the US advocacy group EarthRights International, said locals in Kachin have also told his team about mineworkers dying in unusually high numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The worry now, he adds, is that Shan state and the neighbouring countries into which Myanmar\u2019s rivers flow will suffer the same fate as has Kachin, especially if the mine sites continue to multiply as global demand for rare earth minerals grows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s a long history of rare earth mining causing serious environmental harms that are very long-term, and with pretty egregious health implications for communities,\u201d Hardman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat was the case in China in the 2010s, and is the case in Kachin now. And it\u2019s the same situation now evolving in Shan state, and so we can expect to see the same harms,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most, if not all, of the rare earths mined in Myanmar are sent to China to be refined, processed, and either exported or put to use in a range of green-energy and, increasingly, military hardware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, unlike China, neither Myanmar, Laos nor Thailand have the sophisticated processing plants that can transform raw ore into valuable material, according to SFA (Oxford), a critical minerals and metals consulting firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, a local think tank, says Chinese customs data also show that Myanmar has been China\u2019s main source of rare earths from abroad since at least 2017, including a record $1.4bn-worth in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myanmar\u2019s exports of rare earth minerals were growing at the same time as China was placing tough new curbs on mining them at home, after witnessing the environmental damage it was doing to its own communities. Buying the minerals from Myanmar has allowed China to outsource much of the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is why many are blaming not only the mine operators and the UWSA for the environmental fallout from Myanmar\u2019s mines, but China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UWSA could not be reached for comment, and neither China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor its embassy in Myanmar replied to Al Jazeera\u2019s emails seeking a response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a June 8 Facebook post, reacting to reports of Chinese-run mines in Myanmar allegedly polluting Thai rivers, the Chinese embassy in Thailand said all Chinese companies operating abroad had to follow local laws and regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The embassy also said China was open to cooperating with Mekong River countries to protect the local environment, but gave no details on what that might entail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thailand has said it is working with both China and Myanmar to solve the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a bid to tackle the problem, though, the Thai government has proposed building dams along the affected rivers in Chiang Rai province to filter their waters for pollutants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Local politicians and environmentalists question whether such dams would work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n International Rivers\u2019 Pianporn Deetes said there was no known precedent of dams working in such a manner in rivers on the scale of the Mekong and its tributaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf it\u2019s [a] limited area, a small creek or in a faraway standalone mining area, it could work. It\u2019s not going to work with this international river,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naresuan University\u2019s Tanapon said he was building computer models to study whether a series of cascading weirs \u2013 small, dam-like barriers that are built across a river to control water flow \u2013 could help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he, too, said such efforts would only mitigate the problem at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dams and weirs, Tanapon said, \u201ccan just slow down or reduce the impact\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou need to stop it at the source,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From Wikipedia The\u00a0rare-earth elements\u00a0(REE), also called\u00a0rare-earth metals, or\u00a0rare earths, are a set of 17 nearly indistinguishable lustrous silvery-white soft\u00a0heavy metals. The 15\u00a0lanthanides\u00a0(or lanthanoids),[a]\u00a0along with\u00a0scandium\u00a0and\u00a0yttrium, are usually included as rare earths. Compounds containing rare-earths have diverse applications in electrical and electronic components,\u00a0lasers, glass, magnetic materials, and industrial processes. Rare-earths are to be distinguished from\u00a0critical minerals, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-international-news","category-science-it-ai-military-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2930"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2933,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930\/revisions\/2933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Satellite images show surge in rare earth mining in rebel-held Myanmar<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u2018A very good correlation\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Kachin-mine-2-1754377894.png?w=770&resize=770%2C578&quality=80\")
\u2018Zero environmental monitoring\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You need to stop it at the source\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/2012-01-27T120000Z_1225173334_GF2E81L0E8H01_RTRMADP_3_MEKONG-CHINA-MURDERS-1-1754378526.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")