Increased Mining Threatening Indigenous Peoples

Growth in renewable energy development has increased mining for the raw minerals and metals required by these technologies. The demand for these critical materials, which include lithium, cobalt, silicon, and over a dozen rare earth elements, may quadruple by 2040, creating even more geopolitical tension worldwide. Mining, however, comes with myriad human and environmental costs, and often occurs in disadvantaged areas. Indigenous peoples are being pitted against government and private interests, primarily through the extraction and exploitation of resources on tribal lands. More than half of projects to extract energy transition materials are on or near Indigenous land, and Indigenous peoples are directly impacted by over a third of global environmental conflicts, either through landscape, land, or livelihood loss. Some efforts are underway to boost Indigenous sovereignty, though as evidenced, existing sovereign nations still must often contend with external entities.

Some of these materials also present supply challenges, though in 2024 scientists discovered new U.S. reserves of lithium and helium. Some countries are actively pursuing material discovery; Norway now permits exploratory deep-sea mineral extraction, and the U.S. has funded projects that mine seaweed for rare earth elements. If not performed sustainably, increased mining efforts may introduce issues to areas previously unaffected by the industry and exacerbate them in existing mining regions. Planners should be aware of ways that their communities may be affected by the burgeoning needs of the clean energy transition and work to approach core issues of the field, such as land use and ownership, from disparate perspectives. This should include working with tribes to protect the rights of Indigenous people and control of their land.

A related effort is the integration of Indigenous knowledge within existing approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation. The Māori in New Zealand are embarking on a variety of conservation and restoration efforts, several Native American nations are reintroducing bison to the U.S. plains to enhance environmental and socioeconomic outcomes, and Indigenous knowledge is informing nature-based solutions and documenting ecological shifts in the rapidly warming Arctic. Planners should recognize the heritage of the communities that they work in and incorporate traditional knowledge into planning for sustainability.