Name: How the 'green' mining boom is contaminating indigenous rivers in Southeast Asia | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-03-17T17:13:21.000Z
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Adverbs of degree

It's definitely not environmentally friendly.

The second conditional

If we had this deposit in Europe, these types of deposits in Europe, there would be no way that we could mine them.

These photos show unregulated mines in Southeast Asia.

It's driven by a global demand for critical minerals and the rising price of gold.

But the environment is paying a high price for the lucrative industry.

Recent satellite imagery compiled by the Stimson center shows 788 new unregulated mines beginning operations in the past few years.

Of these mines, some of them focus on extracting gold, and

others are after things like rare earth elements.

These are 17 critical minerals used to produce things like your cell phones and computers, advanced weaponry like laser weapons, and

also clean energy e essentials such as rechargeable batteries and electric vehicles.

DW traveled to remote villages in Laos and Cambodia to investigate the environmental cost of this mining.

The villagers in this province only agreed to torture us if we did not reveal their names or the name of their village.

In mountainous northern Laos, life remains deeply shaped by tradition and a close relationship with the natural world.

The village has been cut off from the nearest water source due to pollution coming from upstream.

They blame this mine run by the rather awkwardly named Laos China Rare Mineral Development Company North 2 Limited.

According to a local source, the mine is operating in a legal gray zone due to lack of government oversight.

Mining operations are often carried out with just an exploration permit, and

others obtain extraction permits at a local but not a national level.

Meanwhile, the national government of Laos has gone clamping down on unregulated mining by issuing things like fines.

But they kind of lack the resources to be able to do this in a large scale way.

The villagers formed a group and staged a Facebook campaign.

They then traveled to the remote area to analyze the water.

Tests showed up things like cyanide, zinc, copper and iron in the river water and found it was also highly acidic.

But Vuong and the villagers no longer trust that the water is safe.

At his vegetable plant on the riverbank, he explains that he no longer gets the water from the river.

Instead, he waters his crops from a totality and water source several mountains over.

For his neighbor Mai, the mining site has also disrupted life.

DW wasn't able to reach the mine itself due to heavy security.

But as we traveled along the road nearby, the scale of its operations were clear.

To get a picture of what these mines really look like, we headed to a similar mining site close to a Nearby town.

As we approached, we were spotted by a guard, a member of the Laos military, who ordered us to turn around, but

The sign was written in both Laos and Mandarin.

Now, typically, it's hard to track down the owners of the mines in the Mekong Basin.

The Stimson center report assumes mining companies originate from countries like neighboring Thailand, Vietnam and China, given Laos porous borders.

From a nearby vantage point, I took a video of the mining back in Germany.

We asked an expert to discover more about the possible environmental impacts.

You can tell from the, from the vegetation, it's not very big.

Leaching means you pump in some solution and the solution will preferentially dissolve your elements.

You are looking for your rare earth elements.

You leach, you collect the water that comes out and you process the water for the rare earth elements dissolved.

If you do this on this type of scale, there will be some damage because these solutions, they are ammonia rich ammonium sulfide sulfate, normally quite often, but

The water they don't need, they probably put in some stream, let it carry it away.

As far as I would assume, there's no effort to collect the water and treat it in some way that's not environmentally harmful anymore.

So it depends on the solution they use, but it's definitely not environmentally friendly.

This is the village of Siempang, just over the border from southern Laos.

She and her family, including two children, live in a home with no running water or electricity.

They source their water directly from the river.

The border with Laos is just upstream from the village.

In recent years, southern Laos has turned into a mining hotspot with newly constructed mines cropping up along tributaries, feeding into their secong.

They take us to their home, which is just a few meters from the river, and

In the past years, they've noticed that its water quality has changed.

From the town of Siampang is Ratanakiri province.

It's where the indigenous brow people live.

They live here on a tributary of the Sekong at the Otabok confluence.

Today they're celebrating the ruchhan of a relative and his wife.

The ritual carries spiritual significance, just like the river.

The river has also been affected by recent mining activity.

A gold mine has been operating upstream in the national park, according to regional media.

They say that mining exploration licenses were granted.

A Global green it's a company run by a tycoon with close links to the Cambodian government.

It's not clear if the company was granted the right to extract gold.

Some activists from the community agreed to speak to us on condition we also hide their identity.

Ngai, together with a group of indigenous activists and leaders, went to check up on assurances they had received from authorities that the mining had stopped.

The river systems in Southeast Asia sustain a huge amount of life, and

they're vital to community communities still dependent on river water for their everyday needs.

If mining is left unchecked, it's unclear if communities like these will be able to survive and preserve their way of life.

Back in Laos, Mai is reflecting on the impact of mining on younger generations.